


A Shadow Over Earth

by sparklight



Series: A Pattern of Chaos and Entropy [2]
Category: Transformers (Dreamwave Generation One), Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Action/Adventure, Developing Relationship, Gen, M/M, Possession
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:18:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 33,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklight/pseuds/sparklight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is approaching, all cybertronians can feel it, but two are feeling it a little more than the others, a third has to deal with the consequences of having saved Earth from Sunstorm's meltdown, and Earth is caught inbetween it all as the betrayer of Primus reaches out to cast his shadow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. And the Pattern Continues

**Autbot City, Alaska, Earth. Early November, 2004. One month after Sunstorm exploding, Jetfire's presumed death, and Bumblebee's disappearance.**

Autobot City wasn't quite finished yet. All the buildings were there, finished and protecting the inhabitants from the elements, but in a lot of ways they were mostly shells, waiting to be filled. Only two buildings, one slightly off from the center, technically called the Emergency Response Center, but already having gained quite a few other nicknames, was completely finished. The other building, a round affair where currently most who were working on Autobot City had squeezed together for time off and recharge, was the rec center. The current de-facto leader of the Autobot forces on Earth was, of course, to be found in the first building and not the second.

"Any luck yet?" Prowl was a little hard to see, sitting as he was in the command station with all of the screens lowered around the desk, but his voice came across clearly to the only other individual in the room.

"Depends, which part did you want luck in?" Jazz whirled the chair he was sitting in around so he could tilt his helm up at Prowl, hidden or not.

"I'd _prefer_ to not need luck at all, but given the situation, contact with Cybertron and an update on the situation there, then Bumblebee's whereabouts, what the Decepticons are up to, and whether or not Jetfire died in the explosion," Prowl said dryly, tapping a stylus against the desk while he flicked through progress reports on Autobot City, Cosmos' (lack of) updates in regards to the location of the Decepticons since the Nemesis was heavily shielded and the location had never been precisely triangulated, and the progress on the excavation in the Arctic, plus a few other, random things.

"Might have somethin' for you on the first count, and I'm sure Bumblebee will... turn up soon." Jazz's hesitation was more of a pause, and Prowl was rather sure Jazz knew something. Or had even talked with Bumblebee, whether or not he knew his location - though, given Jazz, if he'd talked to him he probably knew where he was. 

On the whole though, the reassuring behaviour seemed more in line with Jazz feeling certain Bumblebee was okay and not that he was projecting confidence in that they'd find him. Jazz wasn't the only one, either, but since neither Jazz nor Cliffjumper had gone off somewhere in the last month, Prowl felt that for the moment, the situation could rest. He wasn't going to accept radio silence for forever, however. 

"Ain't much I can do 'bout the 'Cons, but for now I'll take silence..." Jazz trailed off briefly, and one of the screens around Prowl withdrew towards the ceiling in response. That had been an expectant interruption of what Jazz had intended to say. Perhaps..? "And we're on the air. I can give you a breem at the most, an' unfortunately that's _with_ Blaster on the other end."

Not wasting that precious breem, Prowl turned to the screen the connection had been patched through to, and was met with a very rough-looking but mostly healed and _thoroughly_ bored-looking Hot Rod.

"Ah... Hot Rod. Back up and about, I see." There might have been a small, awkward smile for that put-upon expression hidden in Prowl's genuine relief; the last he'd heard, Hot Rod had been kidnapped by the Quintesson forces, shortly before they lost contact with Cybertron for the first time. "What's the situation? And make it short, please." Otherwise he was rather sure Hot Rod would stew in his dissatisfaction at him, and he didn't really have the time to listen to _that_ presently.

"Fighting squid-heads and their minions, very exciting," Hot Rod huffed, feet up on the console and arms crossed over his chestplates. Put-upon because _he_ wasn't out there, but given the beating he'd taken between being kidnapped and being rescued and that those injuries were not completely healed yet, it was only logical he not be involved in the fighting. "Prime's picked up some chicks, apparently? Magnus is leadin' the charge to reunite the forces so we can make a unified attack."

Something moved in the shadows behind Hot Rod, and at first Prowl stiffened as a sharkticon came flying, slamming into the wall beside the computer console and the screen attached to it. Hot Rod whirled around in his seat, optics flaring.

"Hey! Gnaw's on our side! Blast it---"

"Sorry, Hot Rod, but it gets hard to know what's what when there's hordes of 'em outside and we're here to keep you _from them_ , hey Prowl." Swoop appeared at the screen while Hot Rod bent down to tend to Gnaw, his spoiler still seen in the lower edge of the screen while Swoop leaned in, the glow from his red optics dim but not particularly concerned. Behind him, Snarl snorted at Hot Rod, barely seen in the dim light.

"Swoop. Protositting?" Only the fact that Prowl's tone was so dry and his expression bland was probably the reason Hot Rod only bristled, not broke out yelling in his own defense. Swoop grinned, shrugging. 

"Unfortunately, yeah, but Prime's got backup and Snarl, Sludge and I were here when he came back. Grimlock and Slag're out with Magnus' force." Translated it meant that Grimlock and Slag were vaguely coordinating their attacks with Magnus' forces, if barely.

"Situation's in hand, then? Anything else new?"

"More or less, though I'm not sure 'bout the femme squad Prime came off from Quintessa with. He's trusting them though... Oh, yeah." Swoop's frown cleared a bit as he shrugged and then straightened up. "Perceptor said to tell you that they've figured out what the traces of energy in the lab in Epsilon was from, besides Vector Sigma; apparently Shockwave opened up that thing the guy on fire tried to open up back earlier in the war, because the underlying energy signature matched the energy surge before Jetfire somehow got the whole thing closed again. Whatever _that_ means." Swoop snorted, and then the feed fuzzed, screeched static and went black.

"Jazz!" Jerking up from his seat, Prowl stared down at the computer bank below, where Jazz was sitting, holding his hands up in the air as he looked up at Prowl, helm tilted apologetically.

"Sorry, ain't nothin' I can do, partner. Interference got too much. I've got the Arctic team on the line if you want 'em, though."

Suppressing a static sigh, Prowl nodded and sat down again. So now something from _that_ incident had gotten out, and had been out since whenever Shockwave started his cloning experiments. 

That in addition to the situation on Cybertron, and while he was still considering sending backup to Cybertron since the majority of the forces there were hardly _experienced_ as he and Ironhide well knew, they were still more than what he had taken with him back to Earth.

"Ironhide. How's it going?"

Ironhide didn't look particularly pleased to be standing in the middle of nowhere, Arctic, but just grimaced and gave Prowl a wide sweeping view of the area, which revealed a rather impressive crater, partly concealed by driving wind and snow.

"Somethin' crashed all right, and the signal we picked up _is_ comin' from here. An' since the signature's cybertronian an' on an Autobot frequency, guessin' it's Jetfire." The earlier grimace dipped into a scowl, and while Prowl understood the sentiment, especially as, as per the reports given, Jetfire had first come to the _Orion_ with _Starscream_ in tow... Prowl wasn't sure what to make of that whole mess, but Bumblebee wasn't in contact and the only other one who'd been present the whole way through and was an Autobot was Jetfire.

"Let's get him out, then, but if you need to break because of the weather, do it. No sense in taking unnecessary risks, even if it means letting Jetfire stay where he is for a bit longer."

"Eh, we should be through soon. Not that I'm sure it's---" The last was cut off, both from the grumbling being too low for standard audio pick-up to read it unless the range was widened, and because Ironhide cut the transmission right then as well.

Slumping down in his seat just slightly, Prowl pinched his nasal ridge. Cybertron still under Quintesson attack, Shockwave hadn't just cloned people and poked Vector Sigma, but also whatever had been in that cave underneath Altihex, and they _still_ didn't know exactly what the Decepticons were up to, though they knew Megatron had more than one combiner on Earth right now... and then there was the issue with Sky Lynx missing, who they _assumed_ Starscream had taken to Earth when Shockwave dealt with his Autobot uprising, but they couldn't be sure.

And lastly, there was that sense of ominous foreboding, something hovering below the primary programming level---

"Hey, Prowl. Red's comin' in in a few, why don't we get some energon in you?" Jazz asked right next to him, and while he'd heard the mech _move_ he hadn't...

"... Might be a good idea, yes." He stood up at the same time as Red Alert came in, pausing right after getting through the door and letting it close behind him, looking up at the two officers.

"Floor's yours, Red Alert. Contact either of us if something comes up."

\--  
 _The pit in the center of the cave casts an eerie, pink glow over everything, similar to energon but somehow thicker than that, more viscous, if light could have a feel and texture. He's lying on his back, earth and rock disturbed around him and he's really rather tired of this position, but casting a look around to take stock of the situation (so he can do what's already been done), there's players missing._

_He knew they would be, but at the same time, Sunstorm and Bumblebee ought to be here, fragmented memory or not. And Jetfire is all wrong as well, as he's not just kneeling beside him instead of standing above him pointing that oversized rifle of his, he's also in his original design instead of the one he must have gotten somewhere during the several thousand vorns the crews of the Ark and Nemesis were lost in stasis on Earth._

_"Starscream, what does it say?" Jetfire leans forward, offering the view of the computer screen set in his arm, but the glyphs twist and pixellate as fire melts the screen and flares up in a halo around Jetfire, though he doesn't burn._

_He tries to scrabble backwards as the flames explode outwards, reaching for him and distorting everything in a wave of heat that's not felt before the scene resettles and now he's just exasperated and frustrated. This is familiar though it ought not be, because compared to the previous which seems like a mesh of two different memories, this..._

_This is utterly alien, the curving architecture around them foreboding and the seal in front of them radiating malevolence._

_Somewhere behind them, the idiot Prime, somebody with a dark pink frame and really stupid helm design and Ultra Magnus are fighting off wave after wave of blue and purple mechs. The blue ones looks like the not-Decepticon they'd found in Alaska when Shockwave surprised them, and the purple ones' helm design has an uncanny resemblance to a rabbit._

_That's not important, however. The important thing is the seal in front of them and the ring of glyphs around it._

_There's a sense of urgency, of **purpose** , but he has no idea what to do. _

_Jetfire's frowning at the glyphs, helm twitching towards the fighting every now and then, naturally, stupidly, drawn to the scene behind them in a wish to help._

_" **Pay attention** and focus, you idiot! If you don't, it'll be more than **them** overrun," he sneers and knows it's right, that if they fail here, if strength and determination ends up lacking, nothing else will matter. This was the reason he'd tried to push the Combaticons, after all. Jetfire grimaces and turns back to the seal **again** , slowly reaching out to trail his fingers over the glyphs._

_"All right, you're going to need to---" Suddenly background screech that has been thumping around them like the beat of a spark rises sharply, becoming **physical** and the scene distorts, fuzzing into white noise and then focusing into light._

_Light that pours in through a row of windows on the opposite end of the room and the room around him is airy, cheery even, despite the rather clinical surroundings. Understandable given that it **is** a lab, and when the door opens he turns around, irritable scowl familiar and correctly in place..._

_And Jetfire looks so fragging **young**._

_The angles of his faceplates are soft, his optics wide in a way he hasn't seen in **forever** (but he clearly remembers when they hardened for the first time), and the way he carries the whole flight array on arms and back is awkward and scrunched and he doesn't take up nearly half the space that he should given his size._

_He remembers this moment._

_It's still clear and sharp and he often wishes it **wasn't**. This is the moment they somehow manage to tie themselves together, and suddenly he's filled with burning rage and a desire to tear the spark of this memory version of Jetfire out of his chestplates. _

_Maybe if he can just change this, maybe then the glitch wouldn't be there to hold him back, to betray him, to turn his back on **everything** , to hold him up when no one else would do it, to approach and sit with him even when he's decided that he doesn't **need** friendship because he knows Jetfire will still stay, to---_

_And then he's just angry because how **dare** this get brought up? This doesn't belong here in this frustrating, confusing mesh of memory and not-memory. He opens his mouth, vocaliser clicking on, and he's not sure whether he'll fulfil the script the memory has laid down or break it, but Jetfire gets there first._

_"Starscream, I'm tired." And he looks like it, suddenly._

_Still young and awkward but **tired** and somehow that makes it worse. There's a shadow lurking in the doorway behind Jetfire that he knows shouldn't be there, and there's the ghost of flickering flames outlining Jetfire's frame._

_He stares, even more confused, because when did **Jetfire** get to break the mold in here? This wasn't a blasted **spark-dive** for the Matrix's sake, and even if it were, they aren't even **connected** because the glitch got himself exp---_

**The _Nemesis_ , Mid-Atlantic Ridge outside the coast of Venezuela. A few hours after Prowl's call to Cybertron.**

Jerking online, Starscream nearly fell off the recharge berth, ending up clutching its edge to keep him on the flat surface instead of face-first on the floor. Optics wide but dim and unfocused, it took Starscream more than a klik to realise he was staring at the floor in his room, the hand not gripping the edge of the berth pressed to his cockpit at the height of his spark chamber.

"Blasted, fragging _pit_. How _dare you do this to me_!" Whirling off the berth, Starscream punched the wall. "You and your... _thing_! Making me---" he growled, punching the wall again. 

He'd had his blasted sentimental wallowing in memories of their stupid, inconsequential _past_ back when Jetfire left. There was no reason for it to pop up again just because the idiot _weathervane_ had gotten himself killed (protecting him, and well, all right, Earth as well)!

Straightening up, wincing a little as the just-healed repairs from where Megatron shot him protested the movement, Starscream huffed and brushed hands down his arms and loosened the tight cables and locked joints of his wings. 

He could deal with the annoyance of getting his spark scrambled by Jetfire's brief re-emergence, and what it had done to his actions and his motivations; he'd already done it earlier after all. What he didn't get was the part of the memory-glitches that had been recurring for a month now, since Sunstorm exploded. 

Why was his processor mashing up the event of Jetfire asking him about those supposed-glyphs he couldn't read during that cult incident that happened pre-war and the pit Sunstorm brought him to?

And then there was the bit where they were trying to _get_ somewhere, but that one made even less sense than his processor meshing together memories that had nothing to do with each other, because it had a distinct sense of _future_ , mostly because Soundwave had managed to glean enough from the Autobots' communication Starscream knew Prime was fighting Quintessons with a pink-framed somebody, and if it was the future like it seemed, Jetfire shouldn't be there because he was _deactivated_!

Nevermind that being able to tell the future was impossible, blast it all, no matter what the few zealots who poured over the Covenant of Primus claimed.

He was somewhat sure what it was about, however, like he'd claimed to Megatron when the rust-bucket came back. Something that had to do with the pressure that he knew they _all_ felt, lingering at the back of their processors.

Something coming. 

And of course Prime was involved, because when _wasn't_ he, though it was perhaps more the Matrix than the Prime, because with Sunstorm's ramblings about the powers of light and chaos, and those being complementary, and Megatron's long-ago mention of the Matrix being a power source, Starscream was somewhat sure... 

Shaking his helm, Starscream dragged a hand down his faceplates and sat down on the berth again. Okay, so he didn't have everything figured out as clearly as he'd claimed, but he knew a few things. 

The pit of energy... energon, whatever it was, had felt similar to the pressure of threatening arrival in the back of their processors - which he'd rather not admit to feeling because there was no reason for it - and that had something to do with Prime, since he was in the... dream, prophecy, whatever, as well. 

Or maybe Sunstorm had just glitched him beyond saving, and Megatron _shooting him_ hadn't exactly helped. Especially as he had felt it wasn't prudent to stay in the CR chamber for too long given the mechs roaming around the Nemesis now, with or without Thundercracker and Skywarp's nominal protection. 

There was too much to think on and keep track of, and Jetfire _refused to leave_ despite being _deactivated and gone_ definitely this time. Who survived an explosion like that, after all? Superion hadn't. 

"You should've stayed gone, you know," hissed Starscream, venom like acid eating through the words even as his hand reflexively rose to brush the part of the cockpit that protected his spark chamber. 

They'd shot at each other, flown against each other in attempts to make the other crash, then ignored the other's presence and then he was stuck for almost twenty years on Earth after those four million years in stasis lock and he'd almost managed to _forget him_ and then... 

Then he'd _found him_ and he _should have_ killed the traitorous glitch. Even if not doing it had probably saved his life. Even if, the moment he'd realised _who_ it was in the ice, the echo-pulse of a harmonised spark pulse had thrummed more firmly for a moment. 

The harmonised spark-pulse he hadn't gotten rid of since it was established, shortly before Megatron caught his interest. The harmonised spark-pulse he probably... no, _definitely_ should have gotten rid of, and why hadn't _Jetfire_? 

... Possibly for the same reason he hadn't, since it was easy to ignore the echo of the double pulse, especially when Jetfire usually was far removed from his own location, and it was simply a doubling of his own. Smugness still flickered at the edges of his thoughts at that, the moment he realised that Jetfire had adjusted his spark pulse after his own, instead of any of the other possible variations. 

Perhaps it was time to get rid of it, however, especially with how scrambled his thoughts were lately, a scrambling he couldn't afford. Of course, with Jetfire's spark extinguished, that echo of a double pulse should start to fade on its own, but it couldn't hurt to help it along prematurely. 

It was, after all, possible to change your own spark pulse on your own, even if it wasn't particularly easy, or usually done... 

::Hey, Starscream! Meeting in three!:: Skywarp's voice over the comm. frequency cut sharply across his awareness and he swore as he stormed out of the room. 

He couldn't afford any missteps right now, not with Megatron having lost that edge of relentless, narrow obsession with Prime which had clung to him since after he came back with the Aerospace Extermination Squadron way back then. An edge which really had sort of dulled the warlord's inherent danger. The focus the lord of the Decepticons was carrying with him now spoke of another edge however, one which Starscream hadn't figured out yet. 

And until he did, despite the annoyance, he'd had to tread... a little more carefully. Especially what with Megatron's new lapdogs. The Predacons were, unfortunately, a force to be reckoned with. 

He was not the last through the doors of the meeting room, but he certainly wasn't as early as he'd have liked either, but Skywarp had only given him a three-klik warning, and it was somewhat impossible to cross a ship of the _Nemesis_ ' size in that span of time unless one was, say, _a teleporter_. 

Giving said warper a dark look, Starscream sat down to the right of Megatron, displeased to realise he was now sitting between Megatron and Razorclaw. Not much to do about it. 

"Soundwave, progress report?" Megatron didn't even look up from the datapad he was reading, but there was a slight tilt of his helm that revealed he _would_ be paying attention. 

"Location of the Constructicons: found." Soundwave paused long enough to activate the holographic display set in the table, making a construct of Earth light up above the table's surface. 

The whole thing twirled around until the Americas were facing Megatron, at which point the view zoomed in, first on the United States, and then on Nevada. A pulsing dot began to flicker on the map. 

"Military installation of the EDC, they also seem to be in possession of the cybertronian found in Alaska. Course of action?" 

Starscream eyed the holographic map and sneered. So that was where the Constructicons, and by extension Devastator had disappeared to after the battle of San Francisco two years ago. The theories had been either custody by the Autobots - in which case they would have offlined when Ratchet and Brawn made the Ark self-destruct when Starscream attempted to get it before Sunstorm arrived - or taken by some human force or other, as the humans seemed fond of doing. 

It wasn't surprising it was the Earth Defence Command, even if they _nominally_ had supported the Autobots at times during the previous fourteen years. It _would_ be useful if they could have the Constructicons back, not just because of Hook's medical expertise but because the repairs of the _Nemesis_ might get back on track as long as they could get supplies. 

Starscream had resorted to the plan of cannibalising the Ark because it was simpler than trying to build all the pieces necessary, lacking the Constructicons' particular expertise as his little crew of Decepticons had. 

"I want details of the location and its defences, plus layout of the base before we settle on a plan of attack, but I'm sure that type of operation should be of no consequence, yet suitably interesting, for you Razorclaw." Megatron glanced up to look at the Predacon leader, who was eyeing the map, visor slightly dim and an air of faint incredulity surrounding him. 

"While I doubt they have much to offer in the form of resistance, exercising our abilities is never a bad idea." 

Starscream _barely_ kept his snort in and folded his arms over his cockpit as he leaned back in his seat. Fragging pretentious _animal_. This was the leader of the Predacon warlords? Bruticus might be stupider than a drone, but he was relentless and effective, and, above all _resilient_. Which was probably the only reason the Combaticons had (barely) survived Predaking's brutal assault and were now stuck in CR chambers instead of being dead. 

"Repairs of the Combaticons are progressing, origin of the cybertronian signal broadcast for the last decacycle: north-east Arctic. Autobots on location." Soundwave intoned after Razorclaw had fallen quiet, the holographic map changing accordingly to show the Arctic and further a quadrant towards the Siberian coast. 

"Earth's getting _crowded_." The words slipped out before the thought to stop them formed, but the glance from Megatron was merely dryly arched and neither condescending nor irritated. 

"Keep a sensor on the situation in the Arctic, then---" 

Both Megatron and Starscream stiffened at the faint pulse that suddenly slapped through them, echoes of a single word seemingly clinging to the energies of their sparks. 

_Out!_

"What in the _blast_ was that?!" Starscream demanded, jerking up fast enough he winced from the not-yet completely healed injuries, noticing that no one else seemed to be affected. Soundwave's visor went dim and suddenly an obviously hijacked comm frequency was broadcast in the _Nemesis_ ' war room. 

"---in't gonna belive this! We'd just broken through the ice an' then Jetfire goes flyin' up, _literally on fire_ an' he ain't answerin' any hails. Either he's gotten some upgrades since last, or something's _seriously_ wrong here!" 

Still standing up, Starscream stared unseeing at the wall. 

Alive? 

... But _how_?! 


	2. The Enemy Inside Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to keep his frame his own, his spark intact, and finding out what's going on, Jetfire pokes a few memories.

**Earlier, now and later.**

He was tired.

It was a curious feeling, actually, since it had nothing to do with energon being low, injuries taking energy and taxing his self-repair or having skipped too many recharge cycles and the necessary defragging to be done... No, it was more visceral than that. There was nothing wrong with his energy levels and he could, in fact, feel the power of his own self, but he couldn't exactly _touch_ it.

It was like being disconnected from parts of his processor, or having a few sensory vectors shut down, though even that lacked in comparison. He knew it was dangerous though, that disconnection, that feeling of being distant and drawn out thin.

Jetfire wasn't sure what to _do_ about it, however. 

There was fire everywhere, fire and a creeping sense of disorder that bit by bit strengthened the feeling of disconnection, and if it went to far, he knew his spark would extinguish. Not from his frame or processor being too damaged to protect the spark and be connected to it, or any stress put on his spark's energies to make it lose coherency, but rather, he assumed, an inability to stay _connected_ to the frame and processor, while another spark forced its own connection on the same.

At one point, Jetfire had wondered about what the mental structure of his spark and mind would look like, inside the building that had looked like Nova Cronum's Matrix Ignition Chamber. He hadn't had the chance then, since he'd had to go convince Starscream to do something he didn't really want to do.

Now?

Now he'd had... however long it had been since Sunstorm had his meltdown and exploded and he came back to awareness in _here_. A 'here' which consisted of the inexplicably sun-lit corridors and rooms of the Academy for Theoretical Sciences and Research in Nova Cronum, meshed with the Altihex Academy... and the space in the center of it all, the only sanctuary that was left. 

Which, even more incomprehensibly but somehow comforting, was a stretch of landscape of Moon Alpha, a tiny garden that on the actual moon belonged to a visitor center that the caretaker in his Primary Programming unit had taken them to upon their graduation. It was faithfully reconstructed in here in this not-space, a perfect hexagon with a glass ceiling reflecting a false stretch of space, the two suns visible more because of their glare at the upper edge of the glass ceiling than anything else. The crystals suspended in the gas pools represented a few of the most prominent constellations that could be seen from Cybertron, though Jetfire knew one of them hadn't been in the original garden; a 'constellation' which subtly shifted all the time, seemingly dissolving itself before reconstructing in a new formation.

Fire teased at one of the entrances into his - very literal - core and sanctuary, and the rifle formed automatically in his hand, the bolt of energy from it dissolving the flame, leaving the doorway untouched again. As much as that made sense, though he could understand the mechanics of it, being that it was about a mental battle of wills, which simply was represented in the most understandable way.

What made even less sense however was that he'd somehow survived Sunstorm's meltdown explosion. He'd been shielded from the destructive, if not the physical, force of it, slamming into somewhere cold and white and full of _ice_ virtually unharmed.

Then the fire had come, with the whisper that had echoed in his audial as much as his spark ' _I got out_.'

The fire was important, but he couldn't quite grasp it. Too busy holding it off, too busy trying to _stay in control_ of his own frame and mind and yet knowing he was slowly but surely losing.

"This isn't working." Jetfire frowned at each of the entrances to this place, all of them for the moment untouched by darkness or fire and instead showing sunlight pouring through, and the suggestion of familiar corridors beyond. Inexplicably, the thought that he wanted to show Starscream this place, to give him what Jetfire had had to by necessity take, popped up. It felt... odd to think of Starscream so automatically after so long of mostly trying to repress and ignore, the current situation having him dealing with Starscream or not.

"I'm tired... but I need to know what's going on." The most frustrating thing was that Jetfire knew that if he wasn't so pressed, he'd already have made at least _some_ sort of connection, but right now it trickled between his fingers like liquid mercury.

"You are not without a taint, but I see the light as well, and the blasphemous taint _beyond_ cannot go unchecked as it did within me! The core will hold, I'll see to it." Heat and light, warming instead of destructive, bloomed behind Jetfire's back, a reassuring bolstering that wrapped the core in a feeling of stability. He also knew that _that_ couldn't be left unchecked for too long either, however, less the strain on his frame and spark both be too much.

Too much power of an incompatible sort which already had him/his self shivering slightly.

But it would do for now, and Jetfire didn't look behind him as he cautiously chose one of the entrances where the fire had come from most often and ventured out into a space that should be as much his as the core still was, but had been rudely taken over and wrenched from him.

At first there wasn't much proof of the invasion; the corridors were sunlit and quiet, but his steps made no echoes at all. There were, however, shadows where there ought to be none, the metal in angles and corners warped and somewhat insubstantial-seeming. It was... unsettling, considering _where and what_ this place was.

It didn't take long to find a room where fire and darkness obscured all view of what the room _ought_ to look like. Staring into the heaving miasma, Jetfire frowned and gathered his thoughts, keeping the reason for doing this firmly in mind in the hope that it'd lead him right and he wouldn't just... be lost.

Or however this would work.

With a measured vent that was more taking a moment to stabilise his very being rather than cooling his frame - since he didn't exactly have one here - Jetfire stepped through the doorway, and fell.

Fell without any way to catch himself, without able to see his surroundings, and for a moment his mind blanked on what he was _doing_ here, what had been going on and even how long he'd been here - and then the thought flared up.

He needed to know what was going on.

He stumbled as his feet abruptly met ground, simply snapping into existence around him. The edges were faintly indistinct with wisps of shadow and fire eating at them, but the room, otherwise, was clear. Clearer than Jetfire would like, as he certainly _recognised it_.

Despite this being the first time he could see the Seal of Primus in detail, it was undeniably what it was, and the cave it'd been located in... whatever it was. There'd been theories, yes, but they hadn't been able to find out what it was---

 **The Well of All Sparks**.

Jetfire looked around sharply, but there was no one around to have said it, and when he looked back, he ended up staring. At himself, and the mech that seemed to be burning from the inside out, the one who'd called himself the Fallen. 

Fire. 

Of course. How could he have forgotten, or not made the connection, even with having been a bit... ah, _busy_ as it were? The more important question, however, was how had the Fallen ended up in _Sunstorm_?

Rubbing a hand over his faceplates, Jetfire carefully walked up to the edge, looking down into the pit where the Seal broke and the containment field he'd requested of Bumblebee flared up.

Here, removed from the situation, looking at what was happening from other angle, Jetfire was struck by the swell of absolute _power_ that boiled up from the opened seal. It seared, even from here, looking at his own memories from _someone else's_ memories. It felt like safety and life, a vaguely remembered embrace from _before_ he'd even woken up, somehow...

"I don't---" 

He was trembling. 

He had accepted that what he'd seen had definitely been a power of incomprehensible proportions, something primal and _more_ , but here, like this, even _now_ he wasn't sure he could accept the most 'logical' conclusion. For how was it even logical to accept something like the possibility of a _god_ \---

"And that's where you will _fail_."

Jetfire froze, slowly looking up from where he'd been staring at the ground, and met the deeply burning presence of the Fallen, the scene having frozen apparently with Jetfire, right before the Fallen had been struck by the energy that had reached out of the seal and...

Pulled the Fallen with it.

That still didn't explain how he'd ended up in Sunstorm, however.

The Fallen took a step towards him, breaking the memory, and Jetfire straightened up. He wasn't done yet. He knew if the mech, being, whatever he was, reached him, it'd be over and he'd either literally lose _everything_ , himself included in that, or he'd lose the opportunity this was.

"Not _quite_ yet, I think." It didn't take a thought to activate his not-exactly-real flight systems, and the scene around him shattered into fire and light, reshaping into the corridor right outside the... Well of All Sparks. The place, supposedly, all sparks retreated after the offlining of their frames, and where spark energy was said to ultimately come from, mediated into a frame by the Matrix.

(Or, using the more costly and artificial method of a burst of energon and imitating the Matrix frequency, which Jetfire could see now would make sense, if the spark energy ultimately came from the Well of All Sparks.)

He wasn't alone in the corridor, but it wasn't the Fallen that stood in front of the sealed entrance to the Well, but rather...

"Shockwave."

The mech in question didn't react to Jetfire mumbling his designation, more locked to the memory than the Fallen had been. Shockwave, compared to the Fallen, was merely a part of the memory after all, not sharing his spark and mindspace with Jetfire.

Shockwave stood in front of the sealed entrance quietly for a few moments and then - of course - opened it, slowly walking inside and walking around the two floors of the cave inside, walking down to stare at the seal over the Well at the bottom. Jetfire followed, and suddenly it was clear.

Cloning mechs, only Starscream or more than him didn't matter, only the fact that it had happened at all did, Shockwave had been aided by additional spark energy from the Well. The Well, which the Fallen had been sealed up in. Crossing his arms over his chestplates, Jetfire was rather sure he had it right, but he'd see this to the end---

The whole scene sort of _shivered_ around him and briefly he had the strange overlay of watching distorted shapes through ice. The memory of the Well of All Sparks solidified again, then flickered, and even as he _tried_ to stay and keep it in focus, it broke apart around him and then he found himself standing in the garden again, several loud, reverberating cracks thrumming through the air.

Normally, he should, obviously, not be able to have any perception of the outside world while so deeply removed from it, but this wasn't a normal situation.

"... No. They're digging me out, aren't they?" Jetfire turned around, already knowing the answer and knowing he'd need to attempt to stop it. He didn't wait for a reply but rather whirled back to run for one of the openings---

And fell back on the ground, a sense of tight burning lashing over him from having slammed into the open but clearly blocked doorway.

"Blast it---" 

A slow, mocking chuckle rang faintly in the air and the doorway shimmered, the resistance gone...

"You follow the beckoning of the sundering flame, and you will be _lost_. This I cannot assist you in." Sunstorm hovered above his shoulder as he stood up, eyeing the doorway. 

It was a trap, that much was obvious. And he knew Sunstorm was right as well; even just bolstering his connection so he could safely wander outside to go deeper in and search through the Fallen's memories without having the Fallen invade was dangerous. Letting or convincing Sunstorm to assist him getting control over his frame back would be more so. The longer they stayed connected at this level, especially as he'd _let_ the spark of Starscream's clone in here, the greater the chance they'd... merge. 

Or obliterate each other, or one of them doing that to the other. He was honestly not sure on the particulars, or which of those would be the most possible to happen. The difference between going inwards to go through the Fallen's memories and trying to get connection and control back was simply that in the first Sunstorm assisted him by keeping his core safeguarded. In the latter, the assistance would mean helping him taking control back, muddling the difference between _him_ and _Sunstorm_.

And frankly, while the cloned spark was clearly more stable without the influence of the Fallen, Jetfire didn't want to take the risk.

Another wavering moment of split vision, consisting of a sudden slash of fuzzy white clouded sky and snow, and a distant thunderous crack echoed through his core. Jetfire's hands slowly tightened into fists as the Fallen's voice reverberated through the space in a triumphant whisper.

_Out!_

"This is not good." He wanted to leave, but he'd spent... he honestly had no idea how long it'd been since Sunstorm's meltdown, but he'd spent that time _trying_ to do that and so far all he'd been able to do was to keep the Fallen from completely taking over. The mech might be in control of his frame, but he hadn't gained _complete_ victory.

Yet.

"If your purity was greater, this would not---"

"Sunstorm, don't." Jetfire turned around to look up at the hovering Seeker, expression flat, and Sunstorm didn't finish the sentence. The clone spark was, perhaps both curiously and very demonstratively, represented in the barely-armoured protoform stage, instead of being fully upgraded. The wings looked too large for the rest of the frame, as did the thrusters; typical of a pre-upgrade protoform flier, but it did leave them looking rather... silly.

"Whatever your abilities, aided by the Fallen or not, you do have a somewhat greater reservoir of power to draw---" 

This time Sunstorm was the one to interrupt, though not by getting up in the air guardian's faceplates or even directly exploding at him. Instead, Sunstorm literally vibrated in place and shot upwards in a gout of streaming light.

"That which _shadowed_ me, held me back! Perverted my purity and the reason for my mission! I can see it _now_ , the creeping darkness that tainted my purity, and allowed free reign after Starscream tossed me aside! The powers intended for my brother resonating too closely with the betrayer, disrupting that which I was given by the Oracle," Sunstorm hissed, having started out shouting but dropped in volume as the rant went on. Sunstorm made a turn around the garden, then dropped down on the ground, the foot cracked into the floor setting the whole structure ringing.

Jetfire grimaced and took the few steps needed to crouch in front of Sunstorm and _almost_ laid his hands on his shoulders - to shake him or just squeeze them he wasn't sure, but remembered to not touch at the last moment. Not because the radiation was an issue in here, because it wasn't, but for the same reason Sunstorm couldn't assist him in actively taking back his own frame.

Because they'd fuse together. Or annihilate each other.

"Calm down! It's clear you do have..." He'd been about to say something about Shockwave, but in that case it'd probably be the electromagnetic manipulation, not... the seemingly endless wellspring of power Sunstorm had at his disposal, so Jetfire paused long enough to restructure the sentence. " _Some_ manner of enhancement left, even in here, and it's _not_ interacting well with _me_." Blue optics narrow as he looked down into Sunstorm's faceplates, those golden optics flickered, the glow evening out as the clone spark looked around and then... seemed to withdraw.

Not be as bright as he'd slowly been getting in his anger, threatening the structure of the garden, which had been ringing with the tantrum. Whatever Shockwave's manipulations and adjustments of the cloning process with that substance, it seemed some of it was coded for at a deeper level, right in Sunstorm's spark.

"Thank you." Standing up again, Jetfire considered what Sunstorm had said while the Seeker frowned, eyeing him and the increased distance between their heights with a _very_ familiar expression. It made him sort of ache with familiarity and a longing which was partly due to wondering if the brief meeting with Starscream would be the last, given the present situation, and partly because of that meeting itself.

With the remembrance of what they'd _been_ and what he still considered Starscream to be, it guaranteed he now wouldn't forget it, and it felt sort of like he was being cheated on some last meaningful attempt at making up for... What, he wasn't sure. There were things he'd never apologise for, never _excuse himself_ over, but others... Shaking his helm, Jetfire frowned down at Sunstorm himself, the clone spark with his protoform appearance barely reaching Jetfire's waist.

"And what do you mean, the powers intended for Starscream resonating too closely with the Fallen?"

The look Sunstorm gave him was, again, exceedingly familiar, though still tempered with a particular flavour of 'ignorant drone' arrogance that Starscream had never achieved. It was somewhat amusing to consider that there were greater levels of arrogance than what Starscream used.

"He is the betrayer, the one who spit at the light! But before his spark darkened through the touch of chaos---" Sunstorm interrupted himself, optics flaring brightly as he gave Jetfire another look. "You should know. You already know. I am not here to tell you things you already have all the pieces to! You may even see more than you already do, the way the light in here is arranged."

Rubbing the lower part of his face, Jetfire resisted a static sigh. What did he even _mean_? It wasn't as if he'd met the Fallen before the incident with the Seal of Primus, and Jetfire hadn't bothered with the Covenant beyond Primary Programming... wait.

_... and whereas all things rise in light, existence taxes it. But the darkness which stands opposite to the spark of light is not entropy but the inversion of it. The shadowed end of all beginnings stands as the last line of defense against the all-consuming spark of darkness, and where the flame of entropy has fallen, sparks will yet follow and bare the beast to light._

Entropy... and chaos? 

They _were_ different, as long as what was meant with chaos was an intentionally mindless disorganisation and destruction, as that _would_ be opposite of normal entropy, and not the natural chaotic pattern of reality. 

Was that was what meant? He wasn't sure, but he remembered well the flame motif the cult had had, and that the device that had been used to suppress Starscream's mind had looked like a crown of flames while in spark dive. The cult which had been dedicated to one of the Thirteen, apparently with a flame - fire, which was both destruction and, in a way, beginning - motif. And the Fallen was surrounded by fire, seemed to eternally be burning with it. 

That _couldn't_ be it, could it? That the Fallen was one of the First Thirteen, and that _Starscream_ was one which somehow belonged to his... spark line of heredity?

"I know he's from _before_ , but being one of the supposed _First Thirteen_ is a bit _drastic_ of a conclusion to come to, isn't it?"

"You would deny the truth of the Oracle, despite having seen it? Find out more, then! He is distracted, I will hold the core." Sunstorm huffed, slashing the air with one hand as he floated over to sit on a twisted metal formation of angles and interlocking geometrics, the only other decoration in the garden besides the floating constellations.

Shaking his helm, Jetfire walked towards one of the exits again and briefly let the frustration over how slow it was to _think_ in here to the fore. He should have been able to pull the hints and what he knew together without going into the Fallen's memories... but then, dealing with the added pressure of two sparks in his frame and on his mind probably did nothing to help him.

This time, he barely had the chance to take a full step out of the doorway before he suddenly fell, which either meant the Fallen really _was_ distracted, or this was a trap. Resisting the urge to get back to the core, to give in to the flickers of panic at falling without seeing or feeling _anything_ , Jetfire instead tried to think about what he wanted to know. How to even phrase it...

Of course. 'Who is the Fallen'?

At first, there was no memory surroundings solidifying around him in a jarring landing. What came up, instead, was like a dull echo of something _nearly_ erased, possibly suppressed and compressed so far these memories the Fallen wouldn't even be able to find to delete them to clear up the space.

Jetfire hovered in place, not falling any more, and around him formed an equation he'd seen before; creation and entropy, the pattern of the universe itself. Not that he could understand it, really. Too complicated, too vast, but he could tell what it was from the brief glimpse of it he'd had during the first spark dive with Starscream, before he'd settled on something less... ah, abstract.

He was already feeling an ache creep on from looking at this, even dulled through the Fallen's nearly erased memory as it was. But the pattern didn't hold for long, as soon the parts dealing with entropy, at first natural, and then slowly but surely, _unnatural_ took prominence.

Underneath it all was a creeping whisper that made it difficult to keep his presence in the memory as he wanted to get away from it. It crawled along his self, murmuring madness and triumph, and other things Jetfire couldn't hear. Then the abstract nothingness cracked apart and Jetfire had to think to keep himself hovering in the air that suddenly surrounded him.

Cybertron.

In the air above, a giant tear in space-time boiled, something planet-sized and bulging almost completely swallowed. Ribbons of light, extending outwards from Cybertron itself wrapped around the pieces that weren't completely inside, around pointed, golden arcs that stirred primal fear. Shaking his helm, Jetfire turned to look at the surface of Cybertron instead, and knew he was looking at tragedy.

It was difficult to accept the simple, sudden knowledge that this was the single most terrible event to have happened, but the seven frames spread over the surface, cold and already falling apart, were _important_.

Before the Golden Age, before recorded time, indeed. The First Thirteen. Jetfire would prefer to think of another possibility, but Cybertron seemed curiously lacking in anything but stately wilderness, with only a distant building or two that he could see. There was an air of things being unfinished humming beneath the immediate rage, frustration and terror that seemed to swamp the scene. 

The Fallen, wreathed in a veritable storm of fire, stood over another frame and ripped a sword from the downed mech. The sword seemed to vibrate with strength and benign, bottomless determination. Light streamed from the guard and surrounded the blade itself, light which trembled and flickered as the Fallen gripped the sword and his fire died or shied away from where he held onto the hilt.

"And so ends the light of Primus, the first but not the last wielder of the Star Sabre. For the darkness at the beginning of it all, my master." Dark triumph coloured the mocking words and while a huge mech suddenly burst down from the sky - making Jetfire reflexively get out of the way, though it was doubtful he'd actually have collided with him - he was too late to stop the sword from being thrust into the fallen mech's spark chamber.

He was, however, fast enough to _almost_ stop the Fallen from severing the helm from the frame, punching the betrayer away from his fallen brother and yanking the sword out of his grip. He then immediately flew at the Fallen as he got to his feet, but it seemed the Fallen was not so easily rattled. He made a fist with one hand and then tossed his arm wide, causing the huge mech, taller than your average combiner but not quite the size of an Omega Guardian, to go flying as if he weighed nothing.

The Fallen was on him the moment he landed on his back, the ground reverberating with the impact. Fire and energy coalesced in his hands, and the huge mech wouldn't stir in time. It was frustrating to realise there was nothing he could do.

This had already happened.

A faint, multi-toned humming burst up above the Fallen and another mech appeared in the air, slamming into the Fallen's back. He was rather sure the Fallen had showed that ability to warp, something less restrained than Skywarp's ability. The second newcomer was a flier, coloured mainly in white, and then muted gold and maroon, with a curious crackled pattern on his turqoise wings.

"Too late. _Always_ too late, Vector. How does that feel, for the guardian of space-time?" The Fallen laughed even as he disappeared, reappearing where the Star Sabre had fallen - and almost got the blade straight into his faceplates.

"Not _completely_ too late, _betrayer_ ," said Vector with a frown, wielding a sword of his own as he appeared beside the one who'd picked up the Star Sabre; a femme in silver and black, with blue details. "The Chaos Bringer has been banished, now you will be too."

"By _you_?" Scorn heavy in that single word, the fire around the Fallen flared. "I am---" 

"Fallen." the femme said, finality in her voice, and Jetfire had no idea what her designation was. Indeed, he was uncertain most of the designations of the Thirteen were still known at all, and he couldn't remember reading them when he'd looked through the Covenant back in Primary. 

Rage exploded like a physical force around the three, tearing into the ground and air both, atoms torn into nothingness, but the two standing against the one remained unharmed, and the femme Prime rushed forward, cleaving through the power. 

The Fallen went flying, and was beset by both, and then the huge mech the Fallen had attacked but not had the time to kill joined in. Jetfire hung in the air, following the battle with a trapped sort of fascination. He could see the tear in space the Fallen would end up being pushed into, and drifted closer, curious. 

Everything around him rippled, then stabilised. 

" _Jetfire_!" Sunstorm's cry made the scene quaver and fight to reform, and suddenly he had split vision again, watching the ribbons of light shoot out from Cybertron again to assist the three combatants in forcing the Fallen into his prison, and at the same time watching clouds swirl beneath his feet and far below that, a city perched on the edge of a bay. 

The red bridge seemed like a burning brand, and the Fallen fell into the tear in space-time. 

The scene broke, and Jetfire staggered as the garden reformed around him, and he didn't need to see Sunstorm's expression, or hear the shouted words. If he did nothing, something terrible was going to happen. He _reached_ and was met with fire. 

He could feel the power gathering in his hands, taking the shape of a conventional human weapon, though what was _inside_ was certainly not made by human hands. 

_No_! 

But while he briefly managed to make the power's flow ebb and then stutter to a stop, the Fallen's laughter burned around him and slammed him back _down_ again. 

The not-missile was let go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains both accidental and intentional likeliness to this unpublished Dreamwave material: http://tfwiki.net/wiki/The_Enemy_Within as it deals with part of the same plot I'm that I'm working with.


	3. White Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fallen makes his move as seen through other people's reactions, and Bumblebee explains what happened in the pit under the Pacific Ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains mention of non-descriptive complete destruction of two cities.

**The _Nemesis_ , War Room, immediately after "Jetfire's" escape from the ice.**

"Soundwave, keep track of the progress of the situation. I believe we can use this as the Autobots undoubtedly will be... distracted." Megatron stood up, his gaze sweeping around the room and for a minute moment met Starscream's unfocused optics before they narrowed and the Seeker sneered at him.

"Affirmative." Soundwave didn't exactly _relax_ into his chair, at least not visibly, but there was a minuscule rearrangement of his weight and his hands were laced together on the table. Megatron glanced briefly at Shockwave, who was standing like a still, purple shadow up against the wall, flanked by the two repaired (but looking like they'd fall apart any second now) Aerospace Extermination Squadron clones he had left.

"You'll remain here. You can make yourself _useful_ by looking over the Combaticons' progress..." the pause and the narrowing of Megatron's optics implied dire things if he found something tampered with. Shockwave stiffened further but ultimately merely stomped out. "Astrotrain, you remain as well."

The triple-changer nodded and followed after Shockwave; it was more the gesture in itself that was the point since Soundwave could keep an optic on the whole of Nemesis, the apparent Jetfire situation, and any number of extra things. He was, nonetheless, somewhat hesitant in doing so. None of them liked to be close to the clone drones.

"Skywarp, get us moving."

The Seeker in question jerked in his seat, feet clattering down on the ground where he'd been sitting leaned back with his thrusters up on the table. The faintest of grimaces flickered over his faceplates, but he got up without protest. 

He didn't enjoy playing _transport_ , but given that they had the energy available and this way would be able to get to Nevada quickly - especially since Astrotrain was _staying on the base_. Still didn't mean Skywarp wanted to do it, but with the eyes of the lord of the Decepticons on him, he wasn't slow in getting to his feet either.

"... 'Course." It wasn't without a little trepidation that he looked over the amount of mechs he was going to move; Megatron, Starscream and Thundercracker, the Coneheads and the five Predacons. That would be quite a few trips considering his portals couldn't take more than three-four depending on the total mass of the individuals going through, and this included him.

"Megatron, the Autobot's current location: former base."

Everybody paused at Soundwave's proclamation, and Starscream felt frustration boil up. What was going on? Why wouldn't Jetfire just land again to reconvene with the Autobots that had rescued him? 

Aware of Megatron's optics on him suddenly, he looked up and gave the buckethead another sneer. The cool look he got back wasn't enough to stop the exasperated rolling glance he threw on the ground, but the minuscule shift of Megatron's stance finally threatened words out of him.

"How should I know what the idiot is doing? You know as well as I do there's nothing of worth there, but how he _found it_..." Starscream shrugged, openly confused and hopefully that would be enough for Megatron. It was the truth after all.

It just wasn't a good idea, yet at least, to antagonise Megatron too far. Not with the injuries from the rather shocking situation of Soundwave _shooting him with Megatron_ still lingering. 

And nonetheless he needed to stop letting Jetfire - alive or not - scramble his circuits. This should have been _over and done with_ ages ago! But despite what he'd almost planned on doing with dropping Bumblebee and Jetfire in the pit after Sunstorm, though admittedly probably wouldn't have had to do that either way, other things kept popping up. 

Jetfire automatically helping him after being thawed, even if he'd _counted_ on that.

Being slammed into the ground at the bottom of the pit.

Jetfire yanking him off the ground and out of the way of Sunstorm's attack.

That... _infernal_... look right before he shot off to go be a self-sacrificing glitch.

The explosion.

 _Frag_ it all.

Luckily, none of those very incriminating thoughts were obvious outwards, and the brief narrowing of Megatron's optics before he shook his helm and nodded to Skywarp revealed he was off the hook for now. 

Moving again, they went for the combiner fitting chamber as it was a large, open room they could all easily fit in and close to the outer hull of the _Nemesis_ , to allow Skywarp the shortest distance from the ship to the outside. They had a secret base in - amusingly enough if they'd been humans and cared about that - Area 51 to assault and take back what was (a group of) theirs.

\----

**Autobot City, Emergency Response Center, around the same time.**

There was a momentary silence after Ironhide finished. Unless the situation changed in the next few seconds - which no one really thought it would - they would officially have a Situation on their hands. Depending on what happened, it might turn strange, especially given that this would seem to be connected to the Sunstorm incident.

'Strange' seemed to be the keynote for the last two years, what with the pulse that had drawn them to Alaska and the fight where Shockwave had attacked them all, and then returning to Cybertron and being faced with their planet partly rebuilt, energon flowing again... and under Shockwave's control. 

Even if he supposedly had been serving under an (Autobot-staffed) Council. 

Fighting to take Shockwave down, revealing things were not as idyllic as they seemed as everybody had been fitted with some sort of energy-absorbing and redirection device that gave Shockwave power through all other cybertronians. Shockwave wresting the Matrix from Optimus, using it to activate and copy Vector Sigma's content but also sending some sort of pulse accidentally out into space.

A pulse they'd all felt echoed with some sort of dark inevitability, but without further information, that had been mostly ignored for other issues.

Said copied information from Vector Sigma being redirected to labs Shockwave had scattered around the planet, the first of which had been a cloning facility where one clone had been connected to the computer when the data from Sigma came through, and - as per Perceptor's belief - had been partly copied over in a simplified form, into the clone.

Said clone, named Sunstorm, then leaving the lab and turning up on Earth at the same time the supply mission Bumblebee was heading arrived and being after Starscream for some reason. Probably _not_ because Sunstorm was a clone of Starscream, but who knew, and Sunstorm showing abilities far beyond what ought to be possible... It was enough to set any processor spinning, really.

"... Ironhide, you and your group get back here. Red Alert, coordinate with Cosmos and track Jetfire. Strange fire or not, he _did_ first appear here on Earth with Starscream, so who knows what he might do next. Jazz..." Prowl looked up from the multi-layer screen he'd been staring at as he snapped out orders and met Jazz's gaze as the mech in question just came through the door. "Get me Bumblebee. I don't care if he comes _here_ or its over comm. but we _need his side_ of the story as it undoubtedly is connected to the situation with Jetfire in _some_ way." 

Prowl was content giving Bumblebee the time and space he needed to figure things out, up to and until something like this happened and it was clear they'd need to know what Bumblebee knew. Especially as Bumblebee was currently the only one capable of adding the last bit of story to what happened when Sunstorm came to Earth.

They couldn't ask Jetfire, or Sunstorm, and they definitely couldn't ask Starscream.

Ratchet, Brawn and Cliffjumper had been capable of filling in everything up until the point where Jetfire and Bumblebee left to chase down Sunstorm and Starscream after Omega Supreme's battle with Sunstorm had proven to have felled the titanic Sentinel. Probably after the inhibitor on Sunstorm failed... or, more probable from analysing the scrapped inhibitor Cliffjumper had brought back, destroyed by being shot.

By Starscream.

"Can do, boss-bot." The fact that Jazz didn't protest or try to argue would at least imply he was _capable_ of doing as asked, and that was all that was needed for now. Whatever issues Bumblebee had would, unfortunately, have to take a step to the left at least long enough to see if there was something in what happened after Jetfire and Bumblebee left could be connected to _this_.

"I finally got a lock on Jetfire, though the signature doesn't correspond with what's logged in the database in his file, and that shouldn't be _possible_ , you can't just change your energy signature like that!" cried Red Alert from his station and Prowl ground his teeth together. Jetfire's frame, obviously, but was _Jetfire_ still home, so to speak? 

And if not, who was?

"Thank you. Where _is_ he, Red Alert?"

"... Painted Desert, Arizona. A structure with cybertronian design..?" Red Alert turned questioning blue optics to Prowl, who nodded, his frown deepening as he drummed the fingertips of one hand against the console.

"The first base the Decepticons made after we woke up here. They occupied it up until they found the _Nemesis_ around two years ago. Unfortunately, we've still not managed to find the ship's location. It's a lot more shielded than the desert base was. The best we've managed to triangulate it to is the Southern Atlantic, _maybe_ the Gulf of Mexico," admitted Prowl with a static sigh before a ping from Jazz had him turning back to his consoles and thus also in Jazz's direction.

"Bumblebee's waitin'."

Giving Jazz a nod, Prowl accepted the blinking connection and gave Bumblebee a small smile. The minibot returned it, though a bit wanly. He looked like he'd been beating his helm against Grimlock's chestplate and not really gotten the result he wanted.

Metaphorically speaking, that was.

"Bumblebee. I won't keep you for long but we have a situation brewing. It seems Jetfire, or at least his frame, survived the altercation with Sunstorm--"

"He--- But I saw the explosion!" Bumblebee almost jerked upright, but caught himself in time - and from what Prowl could see it was just as well, since he seemed to be sitting in a human garage. A glance at the location coordinates revealed it was somewhere in Cleveland, Ohio. Prowl would bet it was the Witwicky residence. Apparently Bumblebee had managed to get back in Spike's good graces.

"That's why I need you to tell me what happened, Bumblebee. Seems he crashed in the Arctic, we got him out of the ice just a few kliks ago. However, he then burst out of there on fire, though apparently unharmed by said fire... and Red Alert just informed me the current energy signature attached to Jetfire doesn't correspond with his _actual_ one." Prowl leaned forward, lacing his fingers together and resting his chin on them, elbows on the console as he eyed Bumblebee while said minibot hunched back down, optics dim.

"Well, after we left Omega Supreme and Cliffjumper, Jetfire took us south. I think we ended up somewhere close to Hawaii. Sunstorm was _somehow_ holding off the whole _ocean_ away from a... seal? in the seafloor." Bumblebee paused, folding his arms on top of his knees as he frowned. "Not sure how Sunstorm and Starscream got it open, but there sure was a pretty big lightshow. We followed them down and when Starscream attacked us from behind and Sunstorm came from the front, I... er. Jumped Sunstorm." Bumblebee twitched his lips in a tiny, guilty grin as Prowl's expression tightened, but then waved to the minibot to continue.

"He kinda did a number on me, so I didn't see Starscream and Jetfire get to the bottom of the cave that was under the seal, but there was a sort of... pit in there. It had some energon-looking purplish goo in it. Not sure if it actually _was_ energon or something else though, but Sunstorm talked about it like it had some sorta powers that was supposed to be Starscream's.

"Starscream shot both Sunstorm and Jetfire with his null-ray... he'd altered the null-ray somehow so it actually worked on Sunstorm, though not _completely_. He almost got surprised by Sunstorm when he got up again," another pause as Bumblebee grimaced and shrugged. "I warned him. Despite the slag he'd just pulled, Starscream seemed kinda safer than Sunstorm. Starscream shot him again and then kicked him into the pit. I think that's when things went _wrong_." Bumblebee sort of... deflated a little, hunching up more even as it wasn't necessary and Prowl frowned. Hopefully Cliffjumper and Jazz would be able to help Bumblebee get his spark back... and possibly Spike as well, if Spike could forgive them, and in particular Bumblebee enough to open up again.

It'd probably help fix it, whatever it was that had taken a beating in Bumblebee's world-view during the Sunstorm incident.

"Then Sunstorm got back _up_ and he was just... breaking apart. Like, melting and on fire. Jetfire saved Starscream from being hit by an energy wave, and I jumped Sunstorm... I don't remember much of anything shortly after that, until after Starscream put me on a beach. Sunstorm and Jetfire were fighting overhead. I--- I asked Starscream to take me with him so I could help, but he _didn't_ and then... then I suppose Sunstorm exploded. With Jetfire." Bumblebee was staring with a closed off expression at the floor of the garage, optics nearly dark. "What does it _matter_ if we just keep on trying and all that happens is..." Right out of view of the screen, Bumblebee's hands tightened into fists and then relaxed out again as he trailed off.

Prowl straightened, shaking his helm and opened his mouth, vocaliser clicking on---

" _Prowl_! Jetfire just disappeared from the desert base and--- and reappeared over San Francisco? When did he--- he can't teleport! Can he?" Red Alert's cry went slightly shrill, and Prowl cast Bumblebee an apologetic glance even as he changed focus and screens, though he let the feed stay online.

"No, he can't," Prowl snapped. Something was off. Something was very, very off. Bumblebee had mentioned Sunstorm had been on fire, though it was hard to say if that was just a reaction to the rest of him breaking down or not.

It could, maybe be both, but he didn't have enough information. 

"Jazz! Can you give me a visual?"

"Satellites ain't pickin' up anything. Guessing whatever's ridin' in there, if it's not Jetfire, is somehow shielding himself. I can give you energy readings though, and..."

Screens around the room flickered to life to give a panorama view of San Francisco, some parts still being in reconstruction after the fight against the Decepticons there that had levelled part of the city three years ago. Prowl glanced to another screen on his own station, which did, as promised, show cybertronian energy readings.

... Which were rising.

"--niel, get back here--- Oh, no."

"Mommy, who's _that_?"

And they were still rising.

“... Ah, well. Daddy's best friend...”

"You can't give me any lock on Jetfire at all?"

"Sorry, partner." Jazz looked up from where he was hooked into the console itself, and Red Alert, on the other side of the room in a similar situation, shook his helm as well. "It's a pretty slaggin' good shielding, though I don't get _why_ , though if we can't pick him up, the humans can't either."

"Bumblebee! I told you to stay in altmode while in here--- Prowl?" 

Prowl didn't even look away from the screens he were monitoring as Spike appeared in the view of the screen, hanging over Bumblebee's arm to look into the flipped open computer screen he was using to call Autobot City with.

"Spike. I apologise, we're having a bit of a---"

On the screens, high above San Francisco, what looked like a missile suddenly appeared. A very human-conventional looking missile. The temperature in the room seemed to drop, and the three cybertronians froze.

"Spike, get---" Prowl and Bumblebee spoke at the same time, but both were interrupted by Spike himself, who was pushing Carly out of viewscreen where she'd popped up at the edge of the feed, holding Daniel.

"Get Daniel out of here!"

The sound of feet and a child protesting and then a door slamming closed was the soundtrack to the missile dropping - its now-concealed energy signature not at all human-made, no matter what it looked like - clouds whooshing past and the screens continually reconfiguring as Jazz kept jumping satellites to get a view.

"Can't you _stop it_?!"

"... Autobot City doesn't have any long-range weapons." Prowl said it dully. It felt like an empty excuse right now, but they had come here with a mind to appear as a small of a threat as possible. As such, Autobot City's weapons for now were all extremely short-range and defensive.

"Jetfire - or the signature attached to his frame - just appeared over Hong Kong." Red Alert's airy, nearly stuttering sentence wrapped around the room just as the missile hit, drowning the view in a flare of white.

"Jazz---"

They should stop.

"Ahead of ya, Prowl." Jazz's voice was quiet, nearly inaudible in a normal aural range as he spoke, and he was indeed ahead of Prowl's request, because the energy levels were rising again, the screens showing the island Hong Kong was on, plus its attendant other territories before the view zoomed in. 

They didn't need to _see_ what would undoubtedly happen... what was already happening as a second missile registered visually and the signature connected to Jetfire's frame didn't even wait for the missile to drop far at all this time before it disappeared again.

This time, the view split in two - there was technically no need, but it felt _important_ to pay vigil as the second bomb dropped and blanked out half the screens at the same time as the energy levels rose again, this time over Melbourne.

Rose...

\---and paused.

Then they winked out as if they hadn't been. Along with the energy signature connected to Jetfire's frame. 

"What just happened?" Bumblebee, who sounded as shocked as all of them probably felt.

"Jazz, contact the EDC and the President through them, and then the General Secretary in China... Probably the Australian Prime Minister as well, even if the energy missile wasn't dropped there. This is going to throw every government on Earth into chaos." 

Prowl froze slightly. 

Of course. But _why_? 

Then he shook his helm. Bumblebee had asked a question. 

"We believe something else is controlling Jetfire's frame right now. The energy signature isn't matching up like I said earlier, and _Jetfire_ has never shown the ability to teleport... and not even Skywarp can warp across half the Earth in a single jump.

"If you'd like to remain with the Witwickys if they'd have you, Bumblebee, you're free to do so. Otherwise Autobot City's open. I need to deal with this." Nodding to the blank-looking Spike and Bumblebee both, Prowl turned off the feed and slumped down in his seat. Briefly, he allowed himself a moment to pinch his nasal ridge before he straightened again, glancing over to where Jazz was deep in conversation... or probably rather argument with three of the word's leaders.

"Red Alert, where's he now?" He dreaded the answer, but they needed to know.

"... Back at the desert base..? I think... he was briefly in southern Nevada, but not for long."

"Thank you," murmured Prowl as he got up and hooked up to the city-wide intercom. "Autobots, to the central hall in the rec center. We have a situation." He needed to gather a group for recon/assault on the desert base. This needed to stop, and now, before the humans decided to get involved.


	4. The Truth of Your Function

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Starscream doesn't like what he's told, but then, atheists usually doesn't like hearing anything from their society's religion could be true. And both the Decepticons and the Autobots get a brief taste of the Fallen's power.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologise for how long this took; while I know what I want and need to write, it refuses to be *easy* to write. Ensemble stories aren't really my strength.

**Mojave Desert, near the border between California and Nevada, shortly before San Francisco gets hit.**

Tilting his helm back, Starscream ignored Skywarp disappearing again to get the last of their group in favour of the relatively weak winter sunshine. Of course, given that they'd chosen a desert valley and that the sky was high and bright, the last storm having passed a week ago, it was still warmer than one could expect of the season. Miserable mudball or no, Starscream could admit to _almost_ missing the first few years of full-time stay in their desert base in the Painted Desert. 

The sky had always been easily available and high, a harsh openness that, besides flying over ocean, came closest to imitate Cybertron. Even if the Earth's deserts still lacked the crystal growth and energon deposits that coloured the ground in angled facets, it was enough to make a passable similarity.

It made it easier to ignore his swirling processor and all the things he'd rather _not_ think of--- the flash of sun on a passenger plane cutting through the sky and leaving sharp contrails over the stark blue made Starscream scowl. So much for _not_ thinking about white plating and flight, because that sight brought up the memory of the explosion that had bloomed when Sunstorm blew up, supposedly and yet _impossibly not_ taking Jetfire with him.

He'd thought he had it under control, really.

He'd use the mech to protect him from his crazed clone, and then... well, as it went he would have gotten rid of him in the pit, surely, but of course it hadn't happened that way, and instead there had been Jetfire staring at him narrowly, those damnably blue optics of his boring into him and then saying... _that_! That Jetfire thought _he_ had _him_ on such a tight leash he could just expect Starscream to stick his neck out for somebody else like that---

Growling, he scrubbed a hand down his faceplates and turned away from the sun.

He'd miscalculated. 

But then, Jetfire had done as he'd thought he would, immediately helping him with Sunstorm. He'd just... forgotten... everything else that came along with Jetfire besides his practical protection and large - larger than last he saw it, even - frame. 

What was the most frustrating with all this was this repeated cycle of the same or similar thoughts, just at a slight angle from the last time. He seemed unable to _stop thinking_ about it, and that was just as aggravating as the thoughts themselves and the feelings that came with them.

Luckily, by now Skywarp had warped their full force to this location, and at least the noise of Skywarp's portal closing kicked him out of his thoughts. He didn't need Megatron giving him another condescending-yet-amused stare.

::Lord Megatron, the Autobot has left the base. Energy levels above San Francisco: rising.::

"Seems a bit too coincidental to not be connected, obviously." Folding his arms over his chestplates, Megatron didn't move to direct them towards Area 51 but rather waited, a small, almost thoughtful frown on his faceplates. Starscream was _almost_ going to snappily inquire _what_ they were waiting for, because it wasn't as if _Jetfire_ would do anything, when Soundwave spoke up again.

::San Francisco: gone. Signature over Hong Kong.:: 

That... wasn't right. 

Of course, bursting out of the ice on fire had seemed somewhat implausible as well, as had ignoring the other Autobots, but Jetfire didn't even possess the firepower to wipe out a city - even a human-sized one - in one go! None of them did!

Barely keeping the sputter mental and almost missing Soundwave's monotone drone of Hong Kong being similarly wiped out and Jetfire having moved to Melbourne, Starscream attempted to _think_.

Had whatever that had affected Sunstorm gotten into Jetfire?

::Soundwave, what's the energy signature attached to Jetfire? I want it compared to what we have on file!:: He'd supply the energy signature himself if he had to, no matter what that might reveal, but in the end, he wouldn't have the chance. In fact, Soundwave's answer was drowned in brief static and the pop of the thrumming, nearly musical flare of displaced air and transwarp energies to their left.

As one, the Decepticons turned towards the portal, and while it certainly was Jetfire's frame that walked out of the warp gate, there was... _something_ wrong.

The easiest thing to point out as being 'wrong' was of course the obvious flicker of flame at every joint, causing slight blackening of the white metal, though no warping or cracks. Then there was the _presence_ of the mech, an overbearing flare of power bearing down on them all in a way neither Megatron with his steely charisma and command could come near to, nor Optimus Prime even when he got _really_ angry and the Matrix bolstered his presence to subtly hammer against his enemies.

None of that was what Starscream noticed as being the most obviously wrong, though.

It was the fact that, this close, he should have been experiencing flickers of their harmonised spark pulse, and he wasn't.

Sure, maybe Jetfire had finally gone through the steps to alter it, but there had been no _time_ since he last saw him which was right before the explosion, though maybe Sunstorm's meltdown had done it, but Starscream couldn't come up with any examples of great, unfocused energy flares at close range wiping out spark harmonisation. It had to be a direct, oscillating energy beam... And the EM field flickering like heated air around the Air Guardian's frame carried a taint of energies that just wasn't _Jetfire_.

So where _was_ Jetfire? He wasn't just... gone, was he? Starscream wasn't sure what to think about that possibility, and simply pushed it away.

"Foolish, Autobot," said Megatron with a sneer, eyeing the obvious... oddities with curiosity but clear dismissal. For being a mech that had paid attention to the probable importance of the Matrix beyond that of their most powerful spark igniter and the Covenant of Primus as well as apparently put some stock into the prophecy Sunstorm had spouted, he didn't seem to think _this_ had anything to do with _that_ and was prepared to deal with it accordingly, fusion cannon powering up.

"That's not--!" Starscream wasn't even sure why he attempted to say anything. It wouldn't deter Megatron, and yet it tumbled out. But apparently deterring _Megatron_ wasn't the one he should have been trying to deter, but rather whoever it was in Jetfire's frame. The mech burst into motion, using the thrusters to gain extra speed and the shot from the fusion cannon went wide as the two mechs crashed into each other and then toppled over, the impact leaving a crater on the ground.

When the dust cleared 'Jetfire' was standing up, Megatron dangling from a one-handed grip around his neck. Starscream would have laughed at the irony if he didn't feel like he was being potentially cheated of something, even if he'd technically _almost_ managed to off Megatron a year earlier.

How the frag the mech had survived in space and gotten repaired, he didn't know, as Megatron hadn't seemed fit to reveal that little secret yet.

"There are no Autobots here, they're all busy scrambling to do damage control and delay the inevitable that I've set in motion." the chuckle following those words vibrated beneath normal speaking range, and Starscream wasn't the only one who shifted on their feet. "But it seems there's more than one interesting thing on this planet..." murmured the mech currently wearing Jetfire's frame, casually slapping Megatron's arm away when he made to raise it to aim his cannon.

"I should've guessed. My brother's reach is long. _Of course_ he'd be the one behind _you_ ," the mech sneered, energy erupting underneath the hand that held Megatron up and when he tossed the lord of the Decepticons away, Megatron _tried_ to stand up but fell back again.

Not offline, but certainly not fighting fit at the moment either.

Starscream carefully got out of the way when the Predacons made to circle the large white frame, and slowly aimed to get around to where Megatron lay. Skywarp gave him a look from across the impromptu battlefield and Thundercracker looked... distantly disapproving. The coneheads had taken to the air, waiting for a chance to attack... or just keeping out of the way.

::You're an _idiot_ , Starscream! That ain't gonna work, and he's gonna kill you if you try and it actually _doesn't_ work,:: hissed Skywarp over their comm. frequency but he just smirked at the two of them and turned away just as a flare of energy sent not only the Predacons flying several framelengths before they met the ground, but everyone else to the desert floor as well.

The poor coneheads almost went crashing down but managed to catch themselves before they hit the ground.

Swearing and spitting out some dust and rocks before they could lodge themselves in his mouth, Starscream had barely gotten up on his knees when he was hauled up by a wing, turning the swearing into a yell. His fist was met and enveloped by a much larger, white hand and the metal was unnaturally hot.

"And I didn't expect to find _you_ either. I suppose I'll have to _fix_ that before the battle begins anew." The mech completely ignored the whining hum of Starscream's null rays powering up, and dragged him through a warp portal just as the Predacons and Skywarp and Thundercracker got to their feet and Ramjet, Dirge and Thrust landed, energy discharge skittering over their armour and swaying slightly unsteadily.

\------------------  
 **Former Decepticon base, Painted Desert, Arizona.**

When Starscream came online again it was without the memory or experience of having been rendered offline at all, so he must have been knocked offline right as he was dragged through the warp portal. His internal chronometer wasn't cooperative either, but after an empty moment of syncing, told him it was a _few hours_ since he'd been standing under the winter sun in the Mojave Desert.

... At least he wasn't dead yet.

He recognised the place he found himself in at least; the large hangar in their former base that used to have open-air access, both for himself and the other two Seekers to launch directly, as well as a place for Devastator to connect before leaving if it was most suitable to their plans. The mechanism to open the doors had been destroyed in the battle during the so quaintly named 'operation liberation' by the humans, so attempting to leave that way was unfortunately not possible.

Sitting, and then standing up with a grunt, Starscream was pleased to find the hangar visibly empty of anybody but himself, so perhaps he'd be able to get away without any greater issues. He didn't feel like getting involved in yet another madcap adventure, so hopefully the _Autobots_ would be able to fix whatever was wrong with Jetfire.

Of course, halfway to the door on the other side of the hangar from where he'd been dumped, there was the distinct noise of a warp portal opening up, and while he automatically whirled around in the vague hope that _perhaps_ it was Skywarp... of course it wasn't.

"I wouldn't go any further if I were you. It'll make this a lot more unpleasant than it _need be_." 

The voice, besides the hints he'd picked up on earlier, hammered home that this wasn't Jetfire. Of course they could all change their vocalisers as fit, but all of them had preferred 'natural' ranges and pitches that they used, as individual and identifying as their EM fields or any given human's voice. 

What right now came from Jetfire wasn't at all what it 'should be' had the mech been Jetfire in anyway. It was a lot deeper, a rumbling along audio receptors that came to a near unpleasant edge. Inherently threatening while underpinned with some form of pompousness which was mirrored in the way the mech was moving in Jetfire's chassis, and there was further a slight reverb effect Starscream couldn't tell if it was the effect of the mech's voice or something else to do with him, or the vocaliser protesting being forced to produce something it wasn't completely calibrated for.

"And it's _not_ going to be unpleasant, even if I _don't_ attempt to leave?" sneered Starscream, unable to quite hide the honest incredulity behind the more distant arrogance of the mocking he'd aimed for.

"True." the smile was slow and curled around the edges like flames from a not-quite banked fire and for some reason it seemed like the optics shouldn't be blue. "I'm flexible, so it all depends on how difficult _you_ want to make this." He made it sound like the offer was generosity itself, and Starscream huffed, crossing his arms over his cockpit.

Briefly, he let his optics flicker to the side, not quite catching the edge of door on the edge of his vision. So close... 

"So, if I'm going to die, could I at least know the _identity_ of the overpowered fr..." Starscream trailed off, catching the shift of the glow in those optics, and reigned in the tone in his voice while he reset his vocaliser. Pit take these crazies that all seemed to be after him for some reason! "Of the mech wearing Jetfire's frame."

"You're all so _blind_ to what goes on around you." 

It seemed more of an idle comment on the state of things so Starscream managed to _barely_ keep from commenting, keeping the mech in front of him when he started to walk along the hangar, moving around it to stand on the side of the door instead.

It was clearly just intended to mock him and make it obvious how impossible it was to leave, since whether the mech had remained standing where he came out of the portal or where he was now, it was quite clear he could stop Starscream from leaving either way.

"You weren't _there_ , then, spark-kin, but this very mech whose chassis I am... borrowing managed to identify me as being older than the 'golden age'." The last two words were said with a distinct amusement, as if the concept of a Cybertron at the pinnacle of its civilisation was extremely funny. "Golden age, hah! My generation was the first, a supposedly glorious beginning for a fight that has raged _forever_ and which will soon begin anew with the death of this planet."

Unsure whether to sneer or just be _extremely incredulous_ at the direction things were taking, Starscream's processor grabbed at the bits of information that made at least some sort of sense, even if those required him to take the words as true. Meanwhile, the mech paced as he talked, arms spread wide and fire glowing along armour seams and bursting at joints.

"... One of the _first_? The _Thirteen_?" Now the sneer really did slide out of him because honestly what was this religious _slag_ \--- and then the mech turned to face him fully, those surely-not-supposed-to-be-blue optics narrowed and intense, but not _bright_ and power washed over him.

"Jet or no, I never thought one of mine would be quite this _obtuse_. Especially as I believe you do have some previous knowledge of your... connection with me. And I am no longer of their quaint little gathering, regardless of how I _started_ my function." The last few words sizzled like coolant spilled on hot metal as Starscream swayed from the flare of power, then straightened, optics flashing.

" _Obtuse_!? I'm more intelligent than the majority of the scrap-processored drones that currently call themselves cybertronians and I _knew_ that's what you thought, you _always_ underestimate me---" Catching himself short, anger and embarrassment burning along his circuits at the dry, arched stare he was given that _almost_ made him forget again this _wasn't_ Jetfire. It was just very similar to a look Jetfire had given him quite often, but not with that inflection. Not really. 

Swallowing the words that wanted to bubble up, Starscream straightened again and put a really old incident together with what was going on _now_ , since this mech had been so nice as poke loose the particular memory file from where he'd compressed it where he'd stuffed away that annoying experience with the cultists with.

... Cultists. 

Who'd believed he was the incarnation of one of the Thirteen. Fire invading and locking him in, and a crown of fire – at least as it was represented in spark-dive, and... And the report Shockwave had made of an incident he hadn't been involved in since he'd been dealing with the Lightning Strike Coalition and trying to take Uraya from them at the time, plus Jetfire had been involved and they'd both right then been more avoiding each other than attempting to kill each other.

"You're lying." He should probably have phrased that in another way, but he was getting rattled as things started to fall into place. "They were barely dual-core religious zealots, so they were probably mistaken and even _if_ you're one of the First Thirteen, or even supposedly the Fallen, kin-connections doesn't work that way! We're not biological waste heaps of barely usable genetic information carriers! We're _cybertronian_. The Matrix or artificial ignition doesn't allow for more than spark twins." He'd started out shouting, but by the end he was hissing, a thematic verbal connection separated by order of magnitude to what... the Fallen... had been doing earlier.

"Indeed?" It was worse than the most condescending tone Megatron had ever taken with him, because at the least he knew how to handle Megatron. Starscream's wings flared up wide and tensed, the tips of his wings shivering. He did, however, manage to keep himself quiet - if just because he turned off his vocaliser in a flash of caution he felt he'd used too much lately - and his arms tightened enough the armour glass squeaked where he had them crossed over his cockpit.

"You know _nothing_. You'd really believe we're as _one note_ as that?" The look the Fallen threw Starscream, from the tips of his stabilisers to the top of his helm was nearly pitying. "That, when without the handy access of energon in enough abundance to use and simulate the Matrix's frequency, or the Matrix itself, your species, _required_ in some amount to stand guard against a fight that has been going on since the dawn of creation, cannot multiply?" The Fallen chuckled and slowly advanced, inevitable like an incoming wave.

"The Thirteen were... and are, required functions, jet. There are spark-lines standing at the sides, ready to, by their mere presence, shoulder _some_ of our weight if needed." Another look over Starscream's frame before blue met red. "If you weren't a reminder of what weakness I _was_ I'd be impressed you've lasted this long, and will last longer yet, simply by your own stubbornness."

"And I'm supposed to _believe_ all this claptrap? Do I look like an _Autobot_?" Even if the majority of the Autobots believed in atechnogenesis as well, they _were_ more inclined to hold the Covenant of Primus in greater regard than almost any given Decepticon. The only thing anyone kept in similar respect was the Matrix (if not the Prime himself), simply because it was undeniable of what worth it was.

"Really, Starscream, I don't require you to _believe_ anything at all. These are facts, you can choose to apply them or not... but either way, you'll have to do it in some other frame. I can't have you lending the stability of entropy to the fight to come," said the Fallen, as casual as you please as he raised his hand. It was wreathed in energy that prickled along Starscream's circuits like charge of the wrong sort, and even as he retreated, arms up and null rays charging, Starscream _knew_ he was looking at his own death.

" _Wait_!" The shout might have had more of a diplomatic impact if he hadn't fired his null rays immediately after that. The Fallen swayed, the pinkish blast of the null ray shots bleeding into skittering arcs of bluish-white excess charge, and then Jetfire's frame was straightened again.

"That... that shouldn't be possible!" Why did he keep getting dumped with mechs who could get around the null rays effects!?

"As if such a feeble attack could _affect me_."

Time was up.

And then the Fallen stumbled forward, an explosion blooming at his back and Starscream had _never_ been quite so relieved to see Autobots as he was right now.

\---------------------  
 **Within**

Jetfire froze, helm tilting as he felt himself stretch out, the entirety of his being _pulsing_ , and meeting an echo that came from _outside_. Even muffled as it was, smothered underneath layers of fire/power that intruded on everything and made it so hard to attempt to retake his own chassis, Jetfire recognised the echo-pulse of a harmonised spark pulse.

"Starscream's here." Now, how _long_ they'd been in proximity to Starscream and how long he'd missed the soothing pulse of the echo was impossible to say with the muffling effect, which was... probably not good. Since that meant his perception of time passed just didn't match up with the time actually elapsed.

Which, admittedly, was an effect of spark-diving, but many times more magnified in this state than a normal spark-dive, and he'd suspected it, but it wasn't particularly pleasant to have it more or less confirmed.

"NO!" 

Wings twitching sharply at the shout behind him, Jetfire turned around, staring at a quite distraught-looking Sunstorm. For all his anger at his 'brother' for betraying and 'twisting' him, apparently there were still things that went above and beyond that resentment.

"The betrayer cannot be allowed to rip my brother's spark out! Our purpose is not yet done and can still be finished in time, but all will be lost if the servant of the Chaos-Bringer is allowed to finish what he intends!" cried Sunstorm as he rose from his perch, arms thrown out wide and while he was glowing with charge, it seemed ...contained, for now, despite his state.

"I've been _trying_ , and I'm as displeased as you are with being unable to get control back!" It came out sharper than he'd intended, but he was tired, frustrated, and Sunstorm's claim that the Fallen was about to kill Starscream sent discordant twinges through him.

Not yet, _please_. Or at all. He wasn't even sure what he wanted to do if he could get control back, but the thought that he wouldn't have the chance at all, now that he _hadn't_ offlined when Sunstorm exploded was unpleasant. More than unpleasant even, but trying to put words to it wasn't simple.

"No, no, no... We need to... Our purpose is clear, the beast has been revealed through Starscream's perfidy and while it tore me from my place all is not lost..." Sunstorm didn't seem to be listening to Jetfire at all and was clutching at his helm, and _now_ Jetfire could feel the power from Sunstorm press against him, yanking at his being.

"Sunstorm, you need to _stop_ \---"

"... I see now. The oracle knew all along, and in its wisdom, knew it had to be kept from me. I am steadfast, and while I would have risen above it, the pain of death is something few could embrace with an open spark. Two wings as one cannot be in two frames."

Jetfire was only partly listening to Sunstorm's... rambling, but was rather trying to not let go in the face of the pulsing energy that now filled the core, threatening to take over it completely with its warm, _deadly_ light. He heard, but it was put away for _elsewhen_ , when he wasn't threatened to his very being.

"Jetfire! You need to recall the events of before we clashed above the Earth!"

The sudden _pop_ of the energy withdrawing and Sunstorm's demand would have been enough on its own to startle Jetfire into thinking about it, but the _very deliberate_ push Sunstorm suddenly gave him had the poor Air Guardian literally flying out of the core and falling into a room outside, into darkness lit by pinkish-purple glow as Starscream stared at him with wide, red optics and he demanded the Seeker owed him.

Then he lifted off the ground to chase after Sunstorm, and at the bottom edge of his vision, underneath scrolling updates on his HUD, caught sight of the still pool of liquid energy that looked somewhat like energon but Jetfire wasn't certain that it was. Shaking his helm slightly, he refocused his attention upwards, towards the circle of light that'd lead out and to Sunstorm---

And then he had the Fallen flying effortlessly beside him, a thoughtful hum reverberating between them.

"No wonder _he_ is heading towards Earth instead of searching for Cybertron. It matters little, and can be rectified. Thank you for _this_ revelation, Jetfire," said the Fallen with a laugh and the fire flared outwards and Jetfire found himself back in the core again.

"What did you _do_?" Whirling to face Sunstorm, Jetfire had a feeling that the Fallen having seen that, _whatever_ it was that he had seen and Jetfire didn't know, wasn't a good thing at all. Sunstorm stared back at Jetfire solemnly.

"What needed to be done. Our task needs fulfilled before chaos descends."

\--------------------------------  
 **Former Decepticon base.**

The Fallen whirled around to face the intruders, at the same time grabbing Starscream and tossing him into the nearest wall. Jetfire's wings and the booster on his back were blackened and cracked from the grenade, but had held up better than they logically should have.

"It seems I didn't cast my net over Earth wide enough to keep you all distracted. Very well." The Fallen didn't exactly sound _displeased_ , and used the height of the hangar to take to the air, pulling out Jetfire's huge, double-barrelled rifle for some reason instead of using the energy attacks he seemed to have been employing when he attacked the Decepticons.

" _You_ are responsible for the escalation of conflicts the world over?" Prowl's frown was audible in his voice was well as visible, and the Fallen laughed and fired up the rifle.

" _Scatter_!"

In the moment they all did and the shot burned a crater into the floor of the hangar, the Fallen suddenly froze momentarily, optics narrowing and losing their outwards focus. The Autobots, of course, took advantage of the given opportunity, though the shots were evidently attempts at _crippling_ and not _killing_.

Which made Starscream want to laugh incredulously at the foolishness as he got to his feet, as well as feel relieved. That was still Jetfire's frame. He must be in there, right? Tightening his jaw at that thought, Starscream eyed the distance between him and the doorway, and the obstacles in-between. As long as both the Autobots and the Fallen remained... distracted... with each other, he should be able to make his escape.

The Fallen unfroze in time to just _not_ be able to avoid the shots, but while they did damage, they did less than they should have and he simply reached a hand out and closed it into a fist. All the weapons in the Autobots' hands suddenly bent at the barrel, limp as dead fish, as if the metal had turned liquid. 

"... H-hey! Fragger! I recognize this!" yelled Sunstreaker as he stared at his limp blaster, and Mirage frowned as well, eyeing his poor rifle with a decidedly sour frown on his faceplates, more enhanced by the extra mask he wore over his optics rather than hidden by it.

"I do as well. The individual on fire that attacked Blitzwing's cell... what did Jetfire claim he called himself..?"

As one, they all looked back up to 'Jetfire', fire still bursting occasionally from his joints and flickering in armour seams. 

"The Fallen." It was hard to tell if Prowl's quiet proclamation was one of incredulity or acceptance, but really, what did it matter if the mech currently in control of Jetfire's chassis _was_ the Fallen, the supposed thirteenth member of the first generations of cybertronians who had betrayed their maybe-existing-creator? His power, if nothing else, was undeniable. 

The Fallen smirked, and then abruptly shot off to land in front of Starscream, who'd _almost_ managed to sneak around the hangar and was about to start working himself behind the Autobots.

"We have somewhere to be."

With that, Starscream was tossed through a warp portal and the Fallen followed after.


	5. The God Gambit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prowl does what he can, and the Fallen graciously gives Starscream some exposition before he attempts to murder him - what true villain doesn't?

**Autobot supply shuttle _Orion_ , en route to Cleveland, Ohio. Shortly after the Autobots got trounced by the Fallen.**

This had become... quite a bit larger than expected. Dragging a hand down his faceplates and then resting his chin in his hand, Prowl glanced around the bridge of the shuttle and then out the front windows. Sideswipe was currently doing what little was needed to keep the shuttle on course, leaned back in his chair with his feet up on the console. Sunstreaker was at the other end of the bridge, still scowling at his bent blaster. Brawn, Cliffjumper and Mirage were elsewhere while they were in transit.

They were all still... rattled over what had happened at the former Decepticon base, but there was no time to contemplate it other than in further pursuit and attempted plans to succeed in the next confrontation.

 _The Fallen_. 

Whether it was _actually_ true or not didn't really matter, as they'd found out during the fight. Though 'fight' was a very generous appellation for the short altercation where they had been utterly overpowered. 

At the least, whatever and whoever was currently in control of Jetfire's frame possessed the same sort of power-set as the individual who had transwarped into their base and taken Blitzwing with him had had back earlier in the war. They needed a lot more firepower than they presently had, if nothing happened between now and the inevitable future battle. Power they didn't really have, admittedly, but there was nothing much else to _do_. It wasn't as if they could let the Fallen run roughshod - well, more than he already had, Prowl had to admit with a wince - over the Earth... and whatever the reason was for it behind it.

Talking of reasons, he had a mech to talk to.

Prowl reached out to establish a connection with Autobot City, but he got a query ping right before he could press the button. With the ghost of a dry smile on his faceplates, he accepted the call.

"Jazz. I hope things are going better on your end."

"Weeelll, that depends on what ya mean with 'better', boss-bot." Jazz was sat, leaned back in his chair and feet up on the console like Sideswipe, visor bright blue, but rather dim in the _brightness_ of it. Was no one capable of sitting properly these days? Prowl _almost_ sighed. 

"I got China to calm their pistons, _barely_ , and the President ain't happy but sitting tight for now. I got a feelin' they ain't gonna be satisfied with sitting on the bench for much longer, though." Jazz's visor dimmed as he talked, hands spreading, and Prowl frowned.

Yes, he didn't think so either, but there was...

"That means they got to have _something_ as a backup. How well do you think the President will be able to keep his hawks under control?" Leaning forward, Prowl rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and his chin on his interlaced hands. While the President was a good, reasoned man who didn't automatically assume they were _all_ terrible, that didn't mean he had infinite patience... or that those under him might play nice regardless of the President's intentions or plans.

Hallo hadn't, after all.

"... Well. I did some careful digging, and while Commander Faireborne is in charge of the EDC, _her_ boss is a Colonel by name of Witwicky."

Blue visor met blue optics, expressions equally grim. Whereas Spike had just refused to re-establish contact after the debacle surrounding Lazarus, Hallo and San Fransisco since he was still (understandably) upset about the Ark II explosion and his father's death, Buster Witwicky had _always_ been somewhat... wary. Held himself on the side, compared to Sparkplug, Spike and later Carly.

"I see. Anything else before we go in for landing and hopefully pick up Bumblebee?" asked Prowl, sigh underlying his words in a soft, static fuzz.

"Had the President ask me if I knew anythin' 'bout these guys," Jazz paused to send over a few images, and Prowl frowned at what undeniably was cybertronian- _like_ robots, all of them looking exactly the same in a few shades of purple and two protusions sticking out of their helms. There were three or two in each image, one showing a pair landing in what seemed to be Siberia, another image showing three in what was the Australian outback. “I couldn't say I recognised 'em, of course.”

"... We have more than one problem, then." They didn't need this _now_. Were they Decepticons, or was this connected to the Fallen? To something _else_? To that faint, slithering feeling of doom, of something approaching..? Or had the Fallen something to do with that as well, and this was all _connected_? Shaking his helm, Prowl straightened up. "Keep an optic on things, lend assistance _if we can and are asked for it_. What about the situation on Cybertron?"

Jazz suddenly grinned and dipped his helm.

"Ah, that was the _good_ news, I almost forgot. Got a call from Magnus just a short while ago, seems like they're gettin' the situation under control. Magnus said we've got a _preliminary_ visit by Prime soon if everything goes well on their end. For the core of the city."

There was no way to hold back a smile at _that_ bit of news. It'd have happened sooner or later, yes, but it was a while since they'd done something like this at all, and not on _this_ scale before.

"That's good to hear, though I've got no similar good news. We're facing something that's bigger than we are, Jazz. I'm not sure how we're going to handle _this_ given that we seem to be up against a mythical being..." Shaking his helm, Prowl looked up at Sideswipe's wave and nodded, stopping Jazz before he could say anything.

"We're about to land. Hopefully there'll be better news soon."

"Prowl... shouldn't we send all available forces we got to rendezvous with ya?" Jazz frowned, his visor dim as he folded his arms over each other, finger drumming against an arm. Prowl shook his helm.

"Not all at once. If we fail, you'll act as backup until _you_ can get backup from Cybertron. Prowl out." With that, before Jazz could protest, Prowl cut the connection and left the bridge.

\-----------------------  
 **Outside**  
They had argued about how and what to do since Carly had come back from putting Daniel in the care of their neighbours, especially after it became clear Bumblebee would at least go and meet up with the Autobots. 

Technically, they couldn't really help, but with what they'd _seen_ \- especially Spike since he'd been there,watching the feed at the same time as the others as San Francisco and Hong Kong got wiped out, though Carly had been shown at her request when she came back - not doing... something, _anything_ was out of the question.

They'd been running with the Autobots for too long, even if there'd been... issues and cutting off contact the last few years after the Ark II had exploded.

Spike had tried to argue Carly should remain with Daniel, so he'd at least have _one_ parent left if something happened. Carly archly pointed out Spike was as important as she was to Daniel, and that _Spike was as important to her_ as she was to him, and that he could stay as much as she. That they could simply stay and let Bumblebee go on his own... well, they could have done that, of course.

Could have, but even as they weren't directly involved with this, Spike still felt connected, and Carly... While she had met up with the Autobots a few years after he did, that didn't mean her ties were any less, really. They'd been through a lot together, she, Spike and the Autobots.

"---if I or Spike don't call in two days, can you and dad pick up Daniel from the Browns? ... _No_ , mom, nothing is wrong, something just came up and we need to see it through. It could take a while." Carly didn't miss a beat, and her voice didn't waver as she slid over the lie like a professional. Considering that, it wasn't surprising she'd managed to keep her association with the Autobots hidden from her parents until the conflict had come to light to the general public. 

"... Thank you." 

She ended the call with a sigh and reached out for Spike's hand, but he was already reaching for it himself so they met halfway, hands interlacing. They were waiting on an empty stretch of beach along lake Erie, more than an hour outside of Cleveland, Bumblebee beside them and the sun low on the horizon. 

"Got an ETA for their arrival, 'Bee?" Spike glanced up at the alien who still was his best friend, _despite_ everything. He'd also accepted that technically, it wasn't the _Autobots'_ fault the Ark II had exploded and taken his father with it.

Sure, if they'd never become involved with the giant alien mechaniods, then his father wouldn't have been on the ship, but it was Hallo and Adam Rook's responsibility that the Ark II had exploded. 

They'd wanted their giant transforming robots to control, and had gone through any methods to get them. He still didn't really want to get _completely_ dragged into Bumblebee's world again, but with Bumblebee himself not certain he wanted to _stay_ there, Spike... wanted to be there for 'Bee.

"A few more minutes. The _Orion_ 's going to be cloaked but you'll notice its arrival anyway," said Bumblebee with a small, lopsided smile. Cloaking or not, a giant shuttle with its engines going would affect the air and the water as it landed, if nothing else.

Bumblebee turned out to be correct, and while they didn't see the _Orion_ land, they felt it... and watched the hatch open into an inside they couldn't see the outside of as Prowl came out to meet them.

"Bumblebee. Spike, Carly." Prowl nodded to each of them, though his optics lingered a shade longer on Carly, who smiled slightly up at him whereas Spike had just nodded, slightly stiffly. It wasn't easy to get over the hurt and anger of the Ark II explosion, but he was trying.

"What's going on, Prowl? How's Jetfire? Why did he..." trailing off, Bumblebee _almost_ hugged himself, but went for crossing his arms over his chestplates instead. Spike, despite his aloofness to Prowl, laid a hand on the nearest available bit of armour and Bumblebee's stance shifted slightly towards him.

"It's not Jetfire. We were fairly sure before, as you know, since the energy signature didn't match up, but we had a... confrontation in the Decepticons' old base and it..." Prowl trailed off and then stopped, the frown turning into a grimace. "If he's merely not somebody affecting the identity, the mech currently in control of Jetfire's frame would be the Fallen."

Bumblebee made a choked noise, engine stuttering. Spike and Carly looked from Bumblebee to Prowl, understandably confused.

"If you want to know, it can be explained to you later," said Prowl before refocusing on Bumblebee. "Our attempt to stop him at the base failed, of course. We tracked him to the Pacific Ocean when he left with Starscream before causing any substantial damage, but by then his energy signature got lost in a much bigger one, and given that you said the cave in the sea floor was around Hawaii... We need the coordinates, or as close as you can estimate, Bumblebee." Prowl was, by now, looking very sombre indeed. 

He'd hoped to be able to let Bumblebee figure things out on his own, but with the Fallen's energy signature disappearing in the giant one that they'd suddenly picked up on when they'd actually _looked_ , they needed something more specific to go after. Trying to pick out a single energy signature in the pulsing pit that started somewhere off the coast of California and seemed to encompass nearly the whole of the Pacific Ocean was like picking out a single, particular flame from a bonfire.

Whatever the energy Bumblebee had mentioned was, it left a truly impressive reading, as long as you were on the right band to _pick it up_. Prowl wasn't surprised that the Fallen had gone there for whatever reason, but also dreading the very same unknown reasons and whatever the energy source _might be_.

"I can do that. I'll... come with you." Bumblebee straightened up from staring at the ground as he spoke, expression and voice both firming, and Prowl merely nodded and then glanced to Carly and Spike.

"We're coming as well.”

He might have said something in protest hadn't it been _these two_ , assuming they'd already organised something for Daniel - it was strange to think that the boy would be, what... eight? years old by now. They'd last seen the child when he had been around one, shortly before the final attack on the Decepticons in 1998.

"Very well. Welcome aboard, then." Prowl led the way back to the Orion's still-open hatch, briefly resting a hand on Bumblebee's shoulder as he passed him to go inside, and once again nodding to Spike, respecting the distance the man seemed to want to keep for now. When Carly came up, she paused and reached out, hesitating right before laying her hand on his leg when he inclined his helm.

"How's Jazz?" Carly didn't bother to feign disinterest, and Prowl let the small smile curl over his lips as he turned towards the entrance and guided her inside.

"As usual. I'm sure he'll be... ecstatic... that you remember him, and while he's back at Autobot City currently, perhaps you can have the chance to talk later."

Hopefully they would _all_ have the chance to reconvene when this was over.

\-----------------------  
 **Underneath the Pacific Ocean floor, outside of Hawaii.**

Purplish-pink flickered in his view like reflected water, though the glow cast dimly on the ground and not quite reaching the walls of the round cave was more viscous than that. With a growl, Starscream lashed out and propelled himself away, optics going wide as he went tumbling away far more easily than he'd expected.

The Fallen had let go, and was slowly stalking up to the edge of the pit, optics narrowing as he looked down at the liquid within that had the consistency of molten glass when disturbed. At the moment, the surface was perfectly still and looked as if it could carry if one put feet down on it.

That wasn't true, though, as Sunstorm had learned.

"... Ah. I see. Quite a _gamble_ , but no wonder _he_ is coming _here_ and not scouring the universe for you while _he_ regains strength." The Fallen crossed his arms over cockpit and chestplates as he eyed the goop with dim, thoughtful optics.

If Starscream hadn't been busy eyeing the distant escape that the hole that led _out_ of here was, even if it couldn't be seen from here, he'd have sneered at that look. Too much, and _wrongly so_ like Jetfire. He was annoyed at himself that he _cared enough_ to think that, because even given everything, he was still stubbornly holding to the belief that he didn't.

Despite all the wasted time of thinking about said Air Guardian these past weeks.

When he looked away from staring up into the darkness, aware that attempting to flee right now would probably end in failure and that he'd need some sort of distraction, the look was, thankfully, gone. Slowly, and keeping several framelengths between himself and the Fallen, Starscream wandered up to the edge of the pit, rock crumbling away as his left foot's stabiliser skirted the edge and revealed metal beneath.

"So what _is_ this goop? Sunstorm said it would empower me." He kept his optics on the liquid energy at the bottom instead of turning to the Fallen, attempting to appear as... inoffensive as possible. If he could get the Fallen talking, perhaps he could learn something _useful_ from this mess that could be used after (no ifs) he got away from this.

The Fallen paused as if he'd suddenly remembered Starscream was in this undersea cave with him. Tilting his helm slowly in a way that was so utterly not Jetfire that Starscream was both... relieved, and sort of unsettled, he turned slightly towards Starscream. The whole thing was just _wrong_.

"It wouldn't be _pleasant_ , but it certainly _would_ do that," said the Fallen, chuckling. Throwing his arms out to encompass the pit, he continued, the echo of his voice reverberating strangely. "For sparks such as _yours_ , possessing of a power beside your connection to me, this would burn through pathways unused and forgotten, _diminished_ by lack of knowledge and from... necessity, even if you and anyone with a spark ability posses the _potential_."

The Fallen stepped away from the edge of the pit, stalking away at first before he whirled around and came back towards the pit... and Starscream, who was hard-pressed to remain where he was. But on the other hand he was starting to feel more confident of his chances and ability to remain among the functioning for long enough that he'd survive this, so when the Fallen came closer, he just angled himself so he wasn't standing with the edge of the pit _right behind his back_.

"That 'goop', Starscream, is rarefied energon; the purest form of energon to exist in its physical state, the seed from which all sparks are made of."

Starscream... stared. 

Stared, shook his helm and then _laughed_.

"That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard! Almost worse than Megatron and this fixation on the Matrix! So, what, the religious nuts are _wrong_ , then? That sparks come from Primus?" laughing still as he said it, Starscream waved a hand at the pit to his right, though the laughter got slowly choked out as he glanced at the Fallen and spotted the slow, sharp smile that slid over the faceplates.

Jetfire's face ought not be able to make that expression.

"No, they're not _wrong_. Our glowing creator is of spirit, _energy_ after all, and energon the physical manifestation and emanation thereof. I believe you can make the rest of the connection _yourself_ , unless you're utterly deficient in the power your processor can produce." The Fallen's tone implied he thought Starscream _was_ deficient in such a capacity and Starscream huffed but didn't lash out; he realised he'd come very close to retaliation by having laughed earlier.

"Fine, fine. _Whatever_. So what's it _doing_ here, then? On an insignificant mudball so far away from Cybertron? And why could I open the seal that closed off the entrance?" This was probably pushing it, but he was getting _answers_ , and since he was still unharmed and alive... Well. 

At first the Fallen just chuckled again, though it wasn't a nice sound.

"A thing like this would be sealed against interference of anyone except one of the Thirteen... or our spark-line descendants." The glance the Fallen threw him was pointed in the extreme, and Starscream's optics narrowed, crossing his arms over his cockpit. He _could_ think, thank you, and he could draw the inevitable conclusion of what had had been said, if him _somehow_ being connected to the Fallen as revealed was the truth.

When he didn't say anything, the Fallen snorted, a rumbling echo that rolled through the cave.

"Good. This is a safeguard, a secure and hidden spot for a treasure of which magnitude you cannot comprehend... and the most tempting bait in all of creation, in _any_ facet of it. It seems Primus is willing to risk _this_ for the chance of giving you all a moment more of preparation, and his opponent has... understandably... taken the bait. I'm not inclined to give you that, now that I'm here. However..."

Starscream had briefly thought that if the Fallen might be willing to tend to the destruction of... this _rarefied energon_ before he turned to _Starscream_ , he'd have the time needed to get away, but when the mech in Jetfire's frame turned away from the pit and started towards him instead, it seemed he wouldn't have that.

"I believe taking care of _you_ would be better done before that, as it'll be a much simpler matter than destroying this reservoir and will reduce distractions during it."

\--------------------  
 **Within**

With the Fallen thoroughly distracted, it was easier to get an idea of what was going on, even if it was probably somewhat delayed and distorted... and what was being said also wasn't simple to _accept_. 

This was... Jetfire turned off his optics - or at least it felt like he did, since it wasn't exactly what he was doing in here - unbelievable. Though, in a way, the fact that their sparks were connected to energon wasn't actually _completely_ improbable. The connection from there and as to _why_ energon was their main and most optimal source of fuel would actually make sense, as well as the reason why it was necessary to convert other energy sources into energon before it could be consumed.

Jetfire wanted to turn that thought over, wanted to be in a lab and analyse energon properly, since that was the easiest angle to start at, sparks being a much more sensitive matter to research. For now, he could do neither, since even with a better idea of what was going on outside, he still seemed unable to take back control.

Given the various forces affecting his frame, Jetfire wasn't overly surprised, but he was starting to worry about what shape he would even be in if--- _when_ he got his frame back for himself, disregarding any worries that Sunstorm would meld or take over.

And then...

_\--aking care of you would be better done before that---_

Jetfire's optics lit up and he whirled around, even if there was nothing to face.

"No. I can't---" But what could he even _do_..?

"It is time. The oracle has called, and I shall heed it." Sunstorm's voice rang through the core, leaving the space trembling, and there was... something, some difference in his voice. Turning to the clone spark, Jetfire frowned but didn't get to do more than open his mouth before Sunstorm continued, rising up to hover in the air. "Remain strong, for you will be needed after this is over. Help is nearby, _do not let go_." That unfamiliar quality wrapped around him with warmth before Sunstorm seemed to... diminish a little somehow, despite the fact that he felt as powerful as he had before...

And then Sunstorm's shape lost definition as energy rose in a fiery bubble and he shot up and out, the "ceiling" of the core either parting before him, being shattered as he passed and reformed in the instant he did pass, or he simply went through it like it wasn't there.

Jetfire stared, suddenly _alone_ in the core, and he was probably very lucky the Fallen was otherwise preoccupied. That thought didn't linger for long, however, since suddenly a tremble went through the core. It was sound, movement and a stabbing chill all at once, and Jetfire felt himself twist with it.

The _lack_ of Sunstorm was bearing down upon the core, on _him_ , Sunstorm's swell of power having held up most of the strain of it _being there_ and now that he had _left_... Jetfire keenly felt the heavy threads of darkness that was the Fallen outside the core, but while he wasn't intruding, he didn't need to; he was weighing everything down merely by _being_ there.

Everything sort of... melted, then reformed, fuzzy and soft even as he could still see the core and the garden it was represented by.

He needed to... _not let go_.

Hands digging into ground that wasn't actual ground, Jetfire wasn't certain he could do that, but he _had to_.

If nothing else because he still wanted to do _something_ to Starscream for all of this. Whatever that would turn out to be. He just needed...

\----------------  
 **Outside**

Starscream would deny the squawk that left him as the Fallen rushed him, and his thrusters kicked online more through pure reflex than as an active response to what was happening and took him up in the air, above the Fallen. The reprieve was short, however, as the Fallen soon followed. He might not be a _natural_ at flight, but he'd already shown back at the confrontation with the Autobots that he was perfectly capable of taking advantage of the frame he currently wore. 

Starscream's optics widened and he threw himself out of the way of a blast of energy that was thrown at him while the Fallen flew, doggedly on his tail. The energy burned past Starscream's left side, the edge of his wing distorting and the chromanites burning out from the proximity, turning a wavering path along Starscream's arm, null ray and the edge of the wing dead grey instead of blue and white.

" _Blast it all_ \--- You don't really want to do this!" Taking a risk and shooting straight up in an attempt at reaching the exit, Starscream was cut off as the Fallen simply teleported in above him, forcing the Seeker to cut his engines and twist away in a free-fall to avoid another blast as the Fallen chuckled.

"No, I certainly want to. Primus shall have _nothing_ of significance to support him in the coming battle!"

This was... not going well.

Starscream felt another blast of energy deaden the surface layers of metal and destroy the chromanites in his back as he engaged his thrusters again. He needed---

"Gah!"

The Fallen had warped in right in front of him, and even as he cut _everything_ he crashed into the mech, felt Jetfire's large had wrap around his throat even if it wasn't Jetfire in the _grip_.

"Time to see existence from another angle, Starscream." The smile the Fallen gave him had nothing of Jetfire in it, and while he unloaded his null ray once, twice, it seemed to do _nothing_ but cause faint curls of smoke to rise from the joints to mingle with the flicker of flame already there.

He'd feel bad about shooting Jetfire's frame later, if it affected the actual mech in any way. Right now, he just needed to _get the slag away_ \---

The vibration of energy of some sort that was beyond heat thrummed against the thin, slatted metal of his throat. Not _quite_ threatening to rip into it yet, and Starscream stared into optics that no longer were purely blue, clawing at the hand in desperation.

Suddenly the hand around his throat jerked and a flare of whitish-yellow energy that had a core of blue rose from white plating to surge towards Starscream and exploded. It felt like nothing.

In fact, Starscream couldn't feel it hit him at all as it met his armour and sunk _beneath_ , but the Fallen went flying as golden energy expanded in a rush around Starscream's frame, the edges of his wings bleeding orange into white, and the tips of his stabilisers going white to blue.

"You will go no further, _heathen_. I don't feel like dying yet." The smirk on those dark lips curled sharp and arrogant, and the glow from the optics weren't purely red, but rather shaded into orange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rarified energon is from a canon concept and comes from a comic published for the TF club.


	6. A Prophecy With Your Name On It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spark-dive arguments, and the fight against the Fallen. Will everyone make it to the end?

He wasn't alone.

Despite the fact that his systems insisted there was no foreign elements or energy signature intruding, he _knew_ there was something... else present. 

Arrogance like static curled around his joints. Foreign humility slicked like silicone around circuits, dampening sensation and distance. A sense of purpose that wobbled from self-assured uniqueness and suitability to rule over to the bright reassurance and self-importance of having a purpose assured by a presence beyond the knowledge in his processor was lodged the pulses of light that shot around from sub-processor to sub-processor... But only half of those things belonged to _him_.

He could see the points of foreign data that had formed his intruder, the pretender that thought they were _similar_ as those data clusters stood out like bright, too-large crystals against the softer, natural curls of cyberstatic energy. 

The energy and the information contained within had come from _him_.

How _dare_ Shockwave have touched him, have dug his scum-slicked fingers into his processor and spark and extracted enough to make _this_? Make this bright, sharp thing that mirrored himself, and then he'd picked and chosen what he wanted to keep, what suited his blasted _purpose_ best? Bits and pieces yanked away and then been filled in by that which laid the groundwork for the impressive powers that Sunstorm had slung around, and which had made it possible for that foreign data to take hold.

But...

It didn't explain the depth _or_ the strength of said powers.

_the oracle provided_

No.

No, he didn't _care_ what useless bit of _disjointed_ fragments had gotten jammed in among the natural data curled in beautiful swirls and tight knots of light among that which made up _their_ energy signature, _it meant nothing_!

_denial, brother, is a foolish insult against the light. embrace it and we can fulfil our purpose_

Oh, this was just getting _annoying and well as_ ridiculous. He snarled, the sound not a sound but more like a vibration of every pulse of energy that he _was_ , incredulous and disgusted and he could _feel_ them fitting together and he _refused_ \---

Some sort of reality formed around them as Starscream pulled away, his distinct arrogant sense of self rejecting what was going on and they found themselves in a shining room of sky, two moons, two suns and no ground. Sunstorm looked quite... peeved.

"Time is short, and you would waste it on alluvial points of _contention_ , against a unification that has been mandated by powers greater than either you or I?" Sunstorm pointed accusingly at Starscream before he crossed his arms over the center of his chestplates with jerky movements. 

Sunstorm was represented in protoform shape, and thus there was no actual _cockpit_ in place between the bare amount of barely-frozen liquid protoform and the ciruits interlaced there, but rather the simplest framework for what would become the cockpit and a slightly pulsing mass of circuits surrounding the open light of his spark.

The representation of the very thing that even now was stretching out along Starscream's frame, alongside his own cyberstatic energy, taking up space it had no right to.

"You're too young to toss around those words and don't sound _stupid_ , you know. Barely a protoform," sneered Starscream, optics narrowing. "And _besides_ , why should I listen to a religiously delusional _freak_? You may be _powerful_ , Sunstorm, but here it doesn't matter." And he'd already figured out Sunstorm's deal with the pit of energy and _everything_ previous to all this happening... Well, he thought he had, and then the... Fallen... had turned things on its end.

But then, it wasn't particularly surprising that even if Sunstorm had known _about_ the location of the hideaway for the rarefied energon and that his "brother" could open the seal that kept it hidden and locked up and that it _would_ have enhanced him in some manner, it hadn't really had anything to do with the _prophecy_ that supposedly was tied to them.

It had merely cemented Starscream's belief that no matter the oddities of Sunstorm and what was going on, he was _ultimately_ , wrong. Utterly and completely deluded.

" _ALL THIS _and you would _insist_ on still clinging to the profane _foolishness_ when your light is still pure?!" Sunstorm literally exploded, but compared to his stay in Jetfire's frame and core of self, here, with Starscream, it did nothing.__

__They were the same, after all, and clones couldn't affect the origin spark - and, admittedly, neither could the original spark affect the clone - no matter how different their energy output were, as with Sunstorm's control of electromagnetic powers._ _

__Glancing around as the nova around Sunstorm died down, Starscream would never admit to being relieved he hadn't noticed anything. Besides the fact that it was yet another proof that Sunstorm _was_ his clone even if he hadn't mistrusted Jetfire and Ratchet's analysis, really, he didn't like having to manoeuvre around someone more powerful._ _

__And in here, despite Sunstorm's different powers, they were as equal as they could be. Of course, Starscream was still superior to his _knock-off_._ _

__"I've seen no proof of your blatherings about our supposed _purpose_ being true, dear _brother_." The smirk on Starscream's lips was sharp and he snapped a hand up as Sunstorm opened his mouth. "All _I_ have seen have been you flying like possessed all over this forsaken mudball, getting us to that cave and then _dying_ and apparently unleashing a supposed-enemy of the whole cybertronian species from our past on us, _in Jetfire_." He wasn't sure why he'd emphasised that last, even if it'd been an unsettling few cycles to see Jetfire's frame not... _being_ Jetfire._ _

__"You may be _untainted_ , brother, but you're unconscionably, _wilfully_ blind in ignoring the hands of the oracle and the light in your life" hissed Sunstorm, floating closer to Starscream in this place that was probably a room somewhere in Starscream's core consciousness, just not the... "throneroom" Jetfire had found him in far back during that incident with the cultists._ _

__This time, it was Starscream who swelled with protest and the need to lash out, but Sunstorm continued, his optics narrowed into golden-white slits of light instead of their normal amber._ _

__"You already know our purpose, Starscream. You heard it half an orn ago, and true to type you scoffed. Perhaps, if you wish to survive longer than a few more _astroseconds_ you would do well to _accept_! There's more to the universe than meets the eye!"_ _

__He was going to refute that, was about to scoff, but two things brought him up short._ _

__Only a few more astroseconds to live?_ _

__And he'd already heard... the slag he had---!_ _

___And the sun and its brother shall storm over the new world to reveal the beast and destroy it._ _ _

__The sentence, not actually said by either of them, still seemed to vibrate – though thankfully not in Megatron's voice - the whole space around Starscream and Sunstorm, the clone spark tilting his helm back, optics briefly guttering._ _

__"Yes..."_ _

__"NO!"_ _

__Starscream looked around, but there was nowhere to go. Not _here_ , and he couldn't hide either, not from _this_. He could go deeper, deny the process that was going on, _stall_ Sunstorm wrapping around, along him, but what would that do?_ _

___Only a few more astroseconds to live_._ _

__The truth reverberated from those words, because outside, in the _real_ world, the Fallen would soon close his hands around his neck again and repeat his attack, and then things would _really_ be over. For all that he didn't want to have anything to do with this, didn't want to _see, they _had_ done at least some of what the... prophecy... said they should do, hadn't they?__ _

___Sunstorm had arrived, and while part of it had been chasing Starscream, then they'd gone to unearth the pit - not part of the prophecy, he was still sure of that, but rather due to the scrambled, simplified information Sunstorm had among the things that _actually_ applied to this situation - and then... they'd fought, Sunstorm and Jetfire had fought, and Sunstorm's meltdown... _had_... led to a beast being revealed, hadn't it?_ _ _

___The beast that supposedly was one of the first cybertronians to ever have been created, that of Primus' so-supposed empowered first thirteen Primes and the Prime who had betrayed their creator for his antithesis. However it was with _that_ , three thing were plain; the Fallen was incomprehensibly powerful, even in a frame not his own, and he certainly had some plans that spelled destruction in general._ _ _

___And, he wanted to kill him._ _ _

___Hands tensing into fists at his sides, Starscream growled, frustrated. He did _not_ want to deal with this, but... Sunstorm's hand, the barely armoured protoform variation of it still white like his former and actual frame's hand had been, was suddenly offered to him._ _ _

___"Lay aside your protestations, your recalcitrance and your disbelief, Starscream. For this planet, for the sake of _all_ , tainted blasphemers or not, for _your survival_ , let us be one."_ _ _

___Starscream stared at the offered hand, stared, felt the time they'd somehow been gifted with in here slide away from around him with every minuscule pulse of energy and knew one thing..._ _ _

___"Two wings as one, and all that scrap." he couldn't help but sneer, but their hands entwined and brightness flared._ _ _

___He didn't want to _die_._ _ _

___\---------------------  
 **The formerly-locked storage chamber of a reservoir of rarefied energon, underneath the sea floor outside Hawaii.**_ _ _

___"You will go no further, _heathen_. I don't feel like dying yet." The smirk on those dark lips curled sharp and arrogant, and as optics flared with orange-tinged red, energy expanded outwards around the Seeker's frame, colliding with the Fallen's renewed attack and throwing the mech away, sending him flying through the air. The Fallen caught himself by activating the thrusters he now had, drifting a bit before he stopped at a hover, righting himself and looking his opponent up and down._ _ _

___"... Interesting."_ _ _

___Then the Fallen threw himself forward and his opponent responded in kind, thrusters roaring. Maybe it was because of Sunstorm and his curious hands-on fighting method as shown when he fought Jetfire, because instead of flying up and away and using the arm cannons, both mechs threw a punch._ _ _

___Their fists met with a reverberating crunch between them instead of hitting the plating of anyone's chassis, static, streaks of energy discharge that spat and hissed as they crackled together and shards of metal flying away as the momentum of the punch threw off their trajectories and they went flying past each other._ _ _

___Spinning around his own axis, it was used as much as a way to give him some distance from the Fallen as it was to give time to gather a growing ball of electromagnetic energy in his hands. All he wanted to do was use this opportunity to _leave_ , to get away and take the chance to _survive_ , but he couldn't because this abominable threat had to be eliminated - and leaving now, anyway, would probably see him killed from behind._ _ _

___Growling, he engaged his thrusters again, stopped the spin and threw the giant charge at the white frame on the ground with both hands, briefly wondering if the Fallen taking up residence in Jetfire's chassis and repairing the damage from Jetfire's earlier fight with Sunstorm meant he had repaired the overtaxed radiation shielding as well..._ _ _

___It didn't matter. Fire flared up like a tornado around Jetfire's frame, absorbing the impact of the energy attack in an implosion of light that sent shockwaves through the air, rattling them both._ _ _

___"Blast it." With a huff that was purely Starscream, he charged again, no time to be unnerved by the sudden, alien smirk on Jetfire's faceplates as the Fallen raised his hand and grabbed the air, yanking his arm sideways and then down again._ _ _

___There was no thought to how _odd_ that looked, because he was busy choking on a shriek as his wingtips bent, sending him spinning, and then he was yanked in another direction entirely to slam into the wall._ _ _

___Whatever _that_ power was, it was the most annoying, cheating thing in existence!_ _ _

___Getting to his feet, his whole frame vibrating with indignation, he glared at the Fallen who mockingly spread his arms wide._ _ _

___"Too _slow_ , too _careful_... experiencing some complications? Does this frame unsettle you so... _both of you_ , perhaps?" the Fallen _laughed_ , a slow, rumbling sound that echoed oddly with itself, doubly unsettling with Jetfire's twisted vocaliser._ _ _

___"I'll do what I _have to_ , and sacrifices have to be made to purge your taint! Death, with the welcoming, redeeming blessing of the light is far more preferable to being trapped with _you_ , and _I shall see to it_ that you be brought to judgement!" His voice danced dizzyingly between one slight cadence-change to the other, word-choice more obvious to indicate the conflicted dominance than the pitch; Sunstorm and Starscream sounded _nearly_ completely the same after all, and the differences weren't enough to change the vocaliser with the subtle switching._ _ _

___There was a brief flicker of... _something_ from Sunstorm that nearly caught Starscream's attention. It felt like guilt and a promise made of _survival_ if Jetfire just survived a bit longer and didn't let go, but promises were only as good as the one who made them and _he_ had made no promises, had he?_ _ _

___"And yet... you haven't yet. Can you _really_ kill the spark still clinging to existence in here besides my own?" the Fallen mocked, chuckling, and then the sound was drowned out by the sudden roar of engines as the Seeker charged._ _ _

___If he could kill Jetfire?_ _ _

___He sneered, the expression tugging at the soft protoform-metal of his faceplates and felt power gather in his hands. The self-important, overly dramatic _idiot_ was asking the wrong mech! _ _ _

____Of course he could_. _ _ _

___Sunstorm certainly could, his calling, his sense of duty and purpose stood above all else and even if Jetfire had allowed him the time and refuge needed to be able to fulfil what was asked of him, that wasn't enough to stay the power. Starscream was no less capable with his life on the line and the glitch who now wore Jetfire's face would learn his folly despite the fact that he'd fought Jetfire many other times before, tried to kill him and had never actually succeeded, despite being _so very angry_ at the betrayal of Jetfire leaving the Decepticons._ _ _

___No matter, this time was _different_ and the power that was gathered by now would burn _both_ sparks in that frame out, no matter what protections the Fallen had. _ _ _

___He drew his fist back, his optics meeting harsh, burning blue that was wholly unfamiliar, and that only hardened his determination; this wasn't Jetfire. Then the white helm tilted _just so_ , and while it still wasn't Jetfire, it caused another image to pop up---_ _ _

___Leaning over the workbench and the equipment there, a frown on his faceplates that deepened the cleaning grooves cut into his cheeks while he tilted his helm. The results they'd worked for finally being spat out by the machine, and he'd never admit it, but that triumphant smile,_ _ _

___had been distinctly _absent_ when their optics had met from across the gladiator arena, and he'd been _so annoyed_ at only seeing stunned blankness in Jetfire's expression, his optics wide and bright as energon and sparks was spat from the corpse at his feet and energon dripped,_ _ _

___carefully, meticulously, into a vial, Jetfire's movement slow and precise and graceful in a way that still surprised him sometimes as the sample was taken and sealed, the thoughtful concentration clearing into a slighty lopsided smile as he turned towards him and reached out to hand the vial over---_ _ _

___The crunch of crumpling metal seemed to reverberate through his processor as the side of his helm, in front of the audial vent, caved in and he went flying._ _ _

___Slamming into the ground and sliding along it, screeching grooves cut into the mingled metal and rock from his momentum and weight, it was nearly _shocking_ that the attack had been missed. That the punch they'd been about to throw hadn't been, and that they'd caught a punch to the helm themselves._ _ _

___If nothing else, Sunstorm ought not have been caught by Starscream's distracted recollection, but apparently he'd been drawn in as well, and the flare of energy he'd wielded went flying, slamming into the wall somewhere far above. The whole cave seemed to tremble, a spray of sparks raining down over them both and bouncing over ground and plating while some of those strange cables that made up the wall dangled down, broken._ _ _

___"And so, in the end..." the Fallen trailed off as he stalked closer, shaking his helm slowly, mock-sympathy unable to cover the mocking amusement._ _ _

___"T-that was a _fluke_ ," hissed and sliding burning past his lips, both of their cadences in the voice as he gingerly rubbed the deep dent in his helm. Cracks radiated away from the impact dent to make the lower edge of the cheek-protection of his helm loose and spearing into the vent on the side, making some things deeper inside rattle and a strange static to brush over his hearing before it was compensated for._ _ _

___His attempt to stand up was disrupted by the Fallen yanking him up by the throat, the position familiar - for one of them, anyway, as Starscream had dealt with being yanked up by the throat once or twice by Megatron._ _ _

___"A fluke that will cost you _everything_ \---"_ _ _

___"Perhaps, but all is not yet lost."_ _ _

___The Fallen jerked and both looked over at the newcomer who came around from the other end of the room, wandering along the edge of the pit like there wasn't a deep drop into volatile, powerful energy to his left._ _ _

___" _Breakaway_ ," hissed the Fallen, his borrowed blue optics narrowing, though that didn't soften the fierce light any._ _ _

___The mech in question looked... normal. Taller than your average Seeker, though not quite Jetfire's current height, done in annoying bright red and blue. His expression was soft... flat, almost, but somehow reassuring. Breakaway tilted his helm, meeting the Fallen's gaze at an angle._ _ _

___"Fallen. I suppose it is of no surprise that you yet burn, but I---" Breakaway's sincere, compassionate, even, murmur was disrupted by Jetfire's powerful engines roaring and the Fallen's sneer._ _ _

___"I do not need your pathetic, _watered down_ sympathy, Nexus! Especially not _now_ , and from the softest, most _useless_ piece of you. What do you even hope to accomplish?" Turning more fully towards Breakaway, the grip he had on the Seeker's neck softened slightly. Not enough to allow for easy squirming out, but enough to let attention widen from 'hand on neck going to crush it and squeeze my helm off' to 'his fingertips are black'._ _ _

___Not that that could be seen on the hand closest to him, but the Fallen was pointing at Breakaway, fire flickering about the joints, and the tips of his fingers were, indeed, black. Not greyish-black from dead colour nanites, but _black_._ _ _

___The Fallen's spark was getting a stronger hold._ _ _

___That, for some reason, more than any of the other things, had Starscream stumped. The changing colour should probably have made the idea of killing the Fallen all the easier. All it did, though, was set his spark pulse fluttering irregularly, which reminded him of the fact that he _couldn't feel_ the faint echo of the harmonised spark pulse he and Jetfire shared._ _ _

___Energy was flickering around the hand not trying to bend the Fallen's hand around his neck away, as _someone_ of the two of them was going to take advantage of the Fallen's distraction and that was _good_._ _ _

___Right?_ _ _

___"I was put here to safeguard and protect the rarefied energon, so that is what I'll do."_ _ _

___This way, at least, Jetfire would die in no other way, by nothing and no one else except _his_ hand--- But that wasn't true because there was someone _else_ here, wasn't there? The growing ball of energy sputtered, grew and flickered fitfully, though its growth was finally paused not by Starscream's reluctance but rather his comm. snapping to life._ _ _

___::Starscream.::_ _ _

___::What?!:: Optics flickering, both of them tensed at the address whispered over the comm._ _ _

___::You do not need to kill more than necessary. Extract the spark, and my brother can be taken care of without destroying the one who actually owns that chassis.::_ _ _

___That was... that wasn't possible, was it? Optics drifting from the Fallen to the mech who stood facing him, the ball of energy in his hand dispersed back from where it had come._ _ _

___" _You_? Given purpose or not, you don't even have any _weapons_ , Breakaway." The scorn in the Fallen's voice would be enough to disperse a spark on its own if voices could have such an effect. Breakaway tilted his helm in acknowledgement._ _ _

___It was true, after all._ _ _

___:: _How_? That doesn't even sound _possible_ and if you're getting my hopes up for an _easy_ way out for nothing I'll kill you myself! The oracle doesn't condone darkening the light with _lies_.::_ _ _

___There was a soft, quiet fuzzing over the comm. Not quite laughter, but more like a smile made into sound._ _ _

___::You would be surprised by what _he_ condones. But that... is neither here not there.Your other half will know how to do it. Just take care when the spark is withdrawn, so you do not get the wrong one.::_ _ _

___"Physical weapons are not needed in this place for order to be kept, Fallen," said Breakaway with a shrug, mouth opening again right as a fist connected with the Fallen's faceplates, the Seeker's other hand slamming against the plating right above the cockpit glass, where Jetfire's Autobrand was, fingertips digging into near-invisible armour-seams._ _ _

___The Fallen staggered, more out of surprise than the hit having _done much_ , the briefly wide optics sharpening into narrowness and the hand he had around the neck tightening again, flickers of flame suddenly bursting up._ _ _

___Gritting his teeth, the sensation of his vocaliser being slowly compressed and some of the main energon tubing that fed to his processor being cut off was ignored in favour of twisting his hand, energy dancing around the white-tipped blue fingers and he wasn't going to get this _open_ \---_ _ _

___"I don't know what you think you're playing at, but _it will fail_ \---" the Fallen's voice fuzzed into a burst of static as the plating that protected Jetfire's spark chamber was suddenly forced open, a popping rush of flames suddenly receding from the rest of the white frame to halo around the opened spark chamber cavity._ _ _

___The delicate circuitry that surrounded the spark chamber and plugged into it at places spat static and twisted from the heat, and he _knew_ that if Jetfire should have any chance of surviving after he got the Fallen's spark out, he had to work fast._ _ _

___"A gamble... _guided_ by the words of the _light_!" there was a sneer shading those words, but out they came, and perhaps it was just as well - despite the situation the Fallen's gaze flickered towards Breakaway, a brief distraction that let the hand scrabbling at the metal and trying to get past the fire be able to slip past the defences and the spark chamber opened like a flower underneath the assault._ _ _

___Seconds left to live as the hand around his neck tightened sharply and the Fallen's other hand grabbed for his cockpit, digging in and cracking armour-glass and tearing the metal bands. Underneath his _own_ hand, two sparks pulsed in the bared and open spark chamber and despite all imagination and assumption they looked... exactly the same._ _ _

___Brilliantly bright spheres of energy that pulses from the center and outwards, perfectly coalesced, galaxies of information contained within the glowing light - with the fire that seemed to belong to the Fallen adding a yellow glow, still twisting the vital spark-chamber circuitry._ _ _

___His vocaliser spat static as his cockpit cracked and then gave away for the assault, but he was still one step ahead, even dangling a few feet above the ground from a grip around his throat._ _ _

___Or he would be, if he could just tell which of the blasted sparks was the one they _wanted_ \---_ _ _

___Of course._ _ _

___A golden glow around his fingers that had nothing to do with the fire dancing around the spark chamber, he brushed them against one spark, and then the next, nearly idly despite the lack of time. Because really, now that he was paying attention he didn't even need that to tell which spark had the 'right' spark pulse._ _ _

___This close, with the sparks bared..._ _ _

___He could tell which mirrored his own spark pulse in a perfectly harmonic echo, still preserved through a few million years of conflict, despite everything._ _ _

___His hand plunged in without hesitation, energy flickering out in ribbons to curl around one of the sparks just as the Fallen pushed his hands against his _own_ closed spark chamber, fire dancing around the hand---_ _ _

___He yanked his hand _out_ and the light in those blue optics flickered, sputtered and then died completely as fire and electromagnetic energy trailed in a comet's tail behind his hand, curled into a claw around the spark. They fell to the ground in a deafening thunder of metal, and somehow he managed to not get _crushed_ underneath Jetfire's slack frame collapsing over him, and also to keep his grip on the spark he had in his hand, surrounded by a cage of energy._ _ _

___But if he couldn't get Jetfire _off_ him, then this would all be for nothing---_ _ _

___The huge frame slumped over him was suddenly pulled off, Breakaway apparently possessing the strength to easily manhandle the larger jet - he might have too, now, with Sunstorm curled in here, but they were focused on keeping the Fallen's spark where it was, as a storm of fire was beating against the energy "cage"._ _ _

___"... is he... I mean." He cut himself off, voice crackling and static lacing around the aborted words worse than usual due to his abused vocaliser. Standing up on unstable feet and hand clutching tighter about the spark, he shook his helm._ _ _

___It didn't matter if Jetfire hadn't survived._ _ _

___It _didn't_ , because Jetfire would just have to be an acceptable loss, a... he stared down at the offline optics and completely still faceplates and couldn't finish the thought. He should have been able to, and just... couldn't. Not even (or perhaps especially) with Sunstorm murmuring his glitched religious claptrap platitudes which in this case _ought_ to be able to bolster Starscream's own mercenary pragmatism because they lined up._ _ _

___But it didn't._ _ _

___Suddenly he was relieved that when he'd gotten Jetfire out of the ice, he'd been wearing his helmet, because otherwise he'd have had to see Jetfire's face looking like that. Breakaway bent over the still-open spark chamber, static and unstable ribbons of charge flickering out alarmingly instead of the spark retaining its normal sphere shape in its coalesced state._ _ _

___"A moment. The damage is not irreversible, and he is strong."_ _ _

___To him, Jetfire didn't look particularly _strong_ where he lay, even if he knew the Air Guardian _was_ strong. What he looked like was _empty_ and _exhausted_. Still as if the spark was already extinguished and dispersed. _ _ _

___One hand over the guttering spark and the other resting on Jetfire's helm, Breakaway's visor dimmed and then a flare of green billowed out around Jetfire from Breakaway's hands, causing the Seeker to twitch in surprise as cracks closed up, plating sort of melting out to cover up the broken holes and the fire-blackened joints turning white again._ _ _

___How was that possible?_ _ _

___The huge jet jerked, hands flexing and digging into the ground beneath his as his optics flared white and then the first actual, proper frame-working _noise_ from Jetfire was his spark chamber closing, and then the greater cavity as well, plating neatly sliding into place. _ _ _

___Despite this, the sudden, shaky grip Jetfire took around Breakaway's arm as he attempted to sit up and was gently pushed down again, was still a surprise that had both Seeker and smaller jet starting._ _ _

___"... Thank you." Jetfire's voice was steady, smooth and _perfectly as it should be_ , and Breakaway shook his helm, squeezing the closest shoulder wordlessly. There was a moment of wavering silence, and then bright, brilliantly blue optics cut upwards and met orange-tinted red. "Starscream..."_ _ _

___Jetfire reached out, his fingertips white and trembling slightly._ _ _

___He _almost_ completely bent down, reached out, and their fingertips had already brushed when he jerked backwards, straightening up and expression widening into a snarl._ _ _

___"Not yet." If he took Jetfire's hand right then, he'd do something _foolish_ and he if he was doing _anything at all_ , he would do _nothing_ when he wasn't _alone_ in his chassis. Sunstorm had no _right_..! _ _ _

___"No matter my great, light-given strength and determination, What do I do with this before I loose control over it?" He thrust his hand out to Breakaway, the golden glow surrounding it and the fire within that curled around the spark and beat at its cage neatly obscuring Jetfire's face, and whatever expression had come upon it when he'd stepped away._ _ _

___If he saw _that_ , he'd most probably do something foolish as well._ _ _

___"Fly down to the surface of the rarefied energon, thrust your hand in. It might destabilise his spark in this state, or, if not, at least keep it trapped until it won't matter anymore." Breakaway paused, the glow from his optics soft. "Go. I'll attend to the rest and stabilise him."_ _ _

___His gaze flickered unwillingly to what he could see of Jetfire's frame beyond the glow in his hand, but the trembling, unstable energy was enough to get him _going_ even as Breakaway leaned back over Jetfire again, hands on his frame and helm close to Jetfire's, murmuring something softly enough he couldn't catch it._ _ _

___He'd felt some trepidation for sticking his hand into the liquid energy as he flew down and hesitated when he got to the rarefied energon, staring at it. It was quiet down here, and glancing up he could catch nothing but the edges of the pit above him, and the darkness of the cave further above._ _ _

___He didn't feel safe at all sticking his hand into this, especially with all this _other_ energy pulsing about it, but the reaction when he finally did it seemed to explode soundlessly and with only the barest of ripples across the surface and his hand, when he withdrew it, was whole._ _ _

___He'd... done it._ _ _

___Staring at his hand and then tilting down to look at his mutilated cockpit, he felt... nothing. Wasn't sure what he was supposed to feel, because how _was_ one supposed to relate to what he'd done, when he wasn't sure what he believed - what he _wanted_ to believe of what had happened?_ _ _

___Reproach burned down his circuits and he scoffed, shooting up from the pit - and landed right in front of an Autobot rescue party._ _ _

____Figured_._ _ _


	7. Countdown To...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fallen is defeated and all that remains is separating Starscream and Sunstorm.
> 
> So why does it seem like that... is not all?

" _Starscream_."

The Seeker twitched at the name, which was enough to get every Autobot present - excluding Jetfire, still on the ground, and Bumblebee, who was kneeling next to him opposite of Breakaway - to level their weapons at him. Which, of course, made the Seeker raise his arms as well, the whine of null rays powering up easily audible in the curious quiet of the cave.

Counting the amount of weapons that were pointed in a particular direction, the Seeker was very clearly out-gunned, but that hardly meant he'd just give up and lay down.

"Prowl. Is this the way to behave towards someone who just saved all of your useless frames, _plus_ the Earth?" The snide tone had more than one of the Autobots twitch, and while Prowl opened his mouth, Cliffjumper got there first, finger already pressing down on the trigger and a scowl on his faceplates.

"Pull the other one, _Decepticreep_. One move and you're _dead_. Ain't gonna have a repeat of what happened on the _Orion_ ," spat Cliffjumper, who hadn't liked the fact that Starscream had been let onto the shuttle from the start even if he'd never blame Bumblebee for the Seeker shooting Ratchet and the others with his null rays so he could escape while _they_ tried to take care of Sunstorm for him!

"Thank you, Cliffjumper." Prowl cast a warning glance over his shoulder which just had the minibot's scowl deepen. Mirage's hand on his shoulder after Prowl glanced to _him_ made Cliffjumper lower the gun a shade... but not let up on the trigger. "He's right, though. Stand down---"

"You would condemn without full insight into the matters? We were given a task by the light, and I was aided by the oracle in my duty to bring it about, and _you_ aren't going to bring me down!"

Only two weren't looking at the Seeker and the sudden, faint golden glow around him as if something wasn't _severely wrong_ , because since when did _Starscream_ talk like _that_ , or glow for that matter? 

Prowl was glancing between Jetfire, Breakaway and Starscream, a frown on his faceplates and then weapons were cocked and energised as the Seeker rose a few feet above the ground. Bumblebee, Cliffjumper and Brawn shared a look at the crackling ball of energy gathering in white-tipped blue hands.

That was... _very_ familiar. But Sunstorm was gone, wasn't he?

"Enough!"

Everybody jerked, the energy gathered dispersed and nearly as one, they turned to look at Jetfire, who was rubbing his faceplates. The bellow had been surprisingly strong despite being laced with static and the definite droop to his wings as they were tucked down instead of held upwards revealed he was hardly feeling completely restored even with Breakaway's assistance.

"All of you, stop it. That's not just Starscream, but Sunstorm as well. He survived the meltdown, improbably enough. There's been... quite a lot that's happened, which has involved some... ah, _questionable_ use of our physiology. I suppose the closest would be something similar to prolonged spark-dive and two... er, three sparks in one chassis..." Jetfire let loose a static sigh, frown barely visible behind his hand. Now that he had time to think about it, he still wasn't sure how any single frame would be able to handle the energy output of more than one spark - though that _had_ been part of his fear with Sunstorm and the Fallen, and given what Breakaway had to heal and how he felt, _normally_ a cybertronian frame wouldn't be be able to handle such a thing.

It was probably only because of the rather... improbable nature of what Jetfire was saying that kept everybody quiet though the explanation, but they probably wouldn't be for long. Jetfire wasn't really paying attention to _that_ , however, as he finally dropped his hand from his face.

"And... he's not lying." Here Jetfire paused, briefly resting his hand over his chestplates before putting it down on the ground as support, optics going from the Seeker to Prowl. "They did take care of the Fallen, but given... indications from some old incidents, plus what Bumblebee mentioned all of you had dealt with on Cybertron, I believe the Fallen isn't the only thing we have to deal with."

"This is a load of _slag_ ," muttered Brawn, eyeing Jetfire with a dark blue, narrow stare. Prowl just released a low, slow vent of hot waste air that he'd been keeping in and subspaced his weapon.

"We're going to have to go over this more closely, but we can do that _elsewhere_. You are..?" He turned to Breakaway then, who tilted his helm to the side before he stood up, helping Jetfire upright.

"Breakaway. I'm the custodian of this place, though I was unfortunately unavailable when the seal was first breached."

Jet engines suddenly powering up disrupted any further conversation, and while weapons were once again levelled at the Seeker's rising form, Jetfire glanced upwards with a faint frown, optics dim and his free hand tensing slightly into a fist.

"Do you want to stay that way, or actually get separated? Or would the Nemesis carry the supplies... _and_ the help that might be needed?" Jetfire's call seemed to yank the Seeker down like there'd been an invisible rope around one foot that had run to its end, and those dark faceplates twisted in a scowl as he glared around the group, gesturing imperiously.

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

If he met Jetfire's optics for just a brief moment, who even noticed?

\-----  
 **Alaska, Autobot City, medical bay. Little over a cycle later.**

He came into awareness in the middle of the muted scraping sounds of metal moving against metal and the humming of engines - cybertronians walking around. Hand tightening around the back of his helm, Jetfire frowned into the darkness of his own offline optics and realised he'd fallen into a short recharge cycle sometime during Ratchet's grumbling, assiduous examination. 

He knew Ratchet would have found nothing technically _wrong_ with him, not any longer, anyway. Breakaway had seen to it that all physical injuries as a result of the... possessions? and the fights the Fallen had engaged in had been repaired.

The rest was more an issue of his spark being over-taxed, probably from trying to pump out more cyberstatic energy than usual in an attempt to compensate for the _two_ other sparks in his chassis and try to take it back by flooding the dispersal circuitry.

Not that it had worked, which had left him... spiritually exhausted. If he was to use such terminology. It felt odd, but on the other hand, given what he'd picked up from the Fallen's exposition to Starscream and what he'd confirmed with Breakaway it was something like that... but also something that could be rectified not just with rest in a frame now his own again, but also by refuelling.

Energon being, on some level, energon, after all.

He still wasn't sure what to do with the... possibility... that spark energy was related to mundane energon, but in a way he supposed it made sense--- The caustic, sharp tone somewhere off to his right that remained uniquely Starscream despite the softer hints of Sunstorm dragged Jetfire out from his processor and back to _here and now_ and made him online his optics, squinting slightly into the shadowed whiteness of his own forearm that he'd been resting his helm on.

He couldn't lay here and _daydream_ , stuck in turning over the facts, probabilities and new revelations with the situation being what it was. He kept from letting out a gust of hot waste air and instead forced it out in a controlled vent as the Seeker's voice rose sharply.

"Well? _What are you waiting for_? Get him out!" Starscream snapped, and Jetfire, turning his helm enough to be able to survey the half of the med. bay the voice was coming from, saw the Seeker attempt to fold his arms over his cockpit and then had to stop, thwarted by the opened spark chamber. He was sitting turned away from the other mechs in the room and the fact that they even were present was sort of crude itself, especially given that this _was_ a medical matter. Rather understandably, however, no one really trusted to leave the Seeker - especially not with the addition of Sunstorm in the mix, who was weaponised even with Starscream's null rays taken away - alone with Ratchet while Jetfire was down for the count. 

The medic in question straightened up from partly leaning over the opened spark chamber cavity and the diagnostic datapad in his hand, letting the Seeker close up his cockpit and cut of the reflected play of sparklight while he gave the Seeker a dark blue stare.

Jetfire was... relieved when that light was cut off. Sure, Ratchet was a medic and in this case needed to actually see into the spark chamber, but whoever else was here? Didn't need to see _that_. 

Even if it was just the glitter of sparklight reflected on Ratchet's white plating. At least the Seeker himself had been covering up Ratchet enough for the others so that Ratchet's windshield, which undoubtedly had been reflecting the coalesced sparks hadn't been visible.

"Starscream, while there's definitely two - or at least parts of two - sparks in here and Sunstorm hasn't completely integrated, which I wasn't sure was a thing that could happen, I can't just _pluck him out_! I'm not sure how you even managed to do that to Jetfire and the Fallen! If separating you is indeed possible at all at this stage, he's going to have to leave _willingly_ unless you feel like extinguishing." Ratchet gave the Seeker a look Jetfire caught at an angle, and the medic would undoubtedly have followed it up with some choice words about that perhaps being preferable before the Seeker spoke up again, and given the choice of words it was definitely Sunstorm speaking this time.

"Death does not yet approach and the oracle has other things in store, find another way, because I won't stand for this much longer!" It didn't really _end_ with Sunstorm, though, since the last bit was definitely more Starscream flavoured, especially given the sharp gesture that accompanied the words as well as the flick of the wings. Wings which were a little more orange at the tips and along the edge of the ailerons than they'd been before, Jetfire noted with a deepening frown.

"It's not the most pleasant experience for the rest of us either, really. You're even _more_ obnoxious like this, Matrix help us," snapped Ratchet and then waved his datapad around with a frown, continuing before the Seeker could get a word in. "I can't do a thing without an extra chassis, _if_ there is some way of getting the other spark to leave. And while I have _spare parts_ , especially thanks to the supplies that were brought from Cybertron, I don't have any flyer parts... even less _Seeker_ parts. Not to talk about _protoform_..." Ratchet trailed off, eyeing the Seeker with an arch look.

"What? No one's digging out anything else from here! One-eye's taken enough!" White-tipped blue hands came up to shield the now closed spark chamber, and while Starscream's _voice_ and probably expression revealed nothing - Jetfire couldn't be sure from his angle since he was seeing Starscream angled from slightly behind him - the wings twitched downwards and a brief tenseness worked itself across Starscream's shoulders... and he was pretty sure the optics flared briefly and then dimmed.

Someone _snorted_ by the doorway and Jetfire sighed, finally getting up in a sitting position and catching sight of Jazz and Prowl on the other side of the med. bay. Prowl had a flat, slightly pinched expression on his faceplates, standing straight and away from the wall, arms folded over the swell of his chestplates. Jazz, on the other hand, was actually harder to read despite the tiny, sardonic smile he sported, leaned back against the wall and giving Jetfire a little wave as the air guardian sat up.

"Well, that's all _well and good_ , then, so if you could _get out of my med. bay_ and let yourself be escorted to the cell or wherever we're tossing you---"

Before _either_ Seeker could blow up at that - Jetfire could tell it was coming from the way he leaned forward, wings hiking up and hands planted on the slab to haul himself off and towards Ratchet - Jetfire knocked firmly on the slab he was sitting on himself, calling attention to him.

"You know it _would help_ if you actually participated more than just demanding things get solved," said Jetfire with a glance to the Seeker, whose wings hiked up a bit further at that, but Jetfire turned to Ratchet, ignoring both the snort from behind him and the dangerously narrowed optics from the Seeker. "Can you wipe cyberstatic energy and the energy signature from protoform?"

"... Yes, that should... be possible. Especially with the CR chambers available, one of which will have to function as a temporary protoform tank anyway. But I wouldn't _recommend it_ , because the _best thing_ would be if the prissy glitch here would give me some slagging protoform because then there'd be no need for the extra step---" Ratchet stuttered to a stop, both his and the Seeker's optics widening as Jetfire opened up his spark chamber cavity, expression slightly pinched.

"... Jetfire." Ratchet raised his hands and took a step towards him, an awkward sort of urging for stopping what he was doing, but Jetfire had already plucked out a long, thin pair of medical tongs kept in a slot underneath the circuit slab as he knew some medical tools were and was carefully picking through the circuitry around his spark chamber to get to the layer of protoform beneath. 

He could feel both Prowl and Jazz's stares on his back, and he didn't need to look up to know the Seeker - Starscream, Sunstorm, or both, it didn't matter, was staring at him with a narrow look that wouldn't, if one knew what one was looking for, be able to hide the trace of surprise.

"Jetfire, I hope you _know what you're doing_ , that's---"

"Sensitive work, yes. I'm quite familiar with my own frame from the modifications I've done, and while it's somewhat more difficult given that I'm not precisely at peak performance, but I should be able to..." Trailing off, Jetfire teased out a clump of protoform material; soft metal, interwoven with circuitry, pale like his face and all of it pulsing slightly in a way not even the circuitry around his spark chamber was doing.

Jetfire couldn't actually _see_ what he was doing, given that his own chassis was obstructing his view, but he _was_ intimately familiar with his own frame and could do several things by feeling. Though he didn't need to finish it off as Ratchet stomped up, blue optics narrow and bright and helped detach the clump of protoform.

And doing it far more carefully than he'd yanked out the piece of Starscream they'd used in the decoy/suppressor they'd used on Sunstorm, at that.

" _Do_ you know what you're doing, Jetfire?" asked Prowl behind them and while he did a valiant job of controlling his tone, there was still a rather _concerned_ angle to the inquiry, but also incredulous.

Watching Ratchet take the tiny clump of protoform, no larger than the size of a whole optic's complete mechanism, to the CR chamber and letting it fill up with liquid before he dumped the ball inside, Jetfire smiled slightly. More dryly than anything else, but smiled nonetheless, even if it wasn't visible to Prowl and Jazz.

"Certainly. I'm quite familiar with saving Starscream from himself as necessary."

Jazz _chortled_ while the Seeker on the other circuit slab puffed up and out like he somehow was a metallic balloon, optics flaring nearly orange - which just settled Jetfire's determination of having this done and over with as soon as possible.

"I _do not need to be rescued_ , you flying freak of nature!" Starscream might have said more, but he was too busy sputtering static and, possibly, fighting with Sunstorm. Jetfire just met the sputtering with an arch stare, helm tilting.

"It's perfectly natural for me to be able to disconnect my flight array, that's how air guardians _work_. But I suppose that might have slipped your memory since I last explained it." Jetfire shrugged and knew he should probably have said something else than what he'd originally said, but tired or not, now that he was up and aware again, the distance between them was... annoying.

He just wanted the chance to... _touch_ , but until Sunstorm was removed, it wouldn't even just be Starscream he'd be reassuring himself about, so the distance from the slab he sat on and the one the Seeker was on wasn't just literal, but, after a fashion, metaphysical as well.

"All right." Ratchet turned away from the CR chamber, the tank itself nearly full with a greenish liquid that had tones of pink - not exactly normal liquid for a CR chamber, but then it wasn't supposed to support and assist a repairing mech - and a fist-size clump of protoform. "I've confirmed there's none of your cyberstatic energy or energy signature left in the protoform, Jetfire, and it should have multiplied to a proper volume to allow a full spark to bond to it and be safely contained. If this works," said Ratchet, eyeing the tank and then the Seeker, shaking his helm. His tone heavily implied he doubted it would, but given who it was that was having issues? He'd done what he could and expressed his disbelief. 

"All you have to do, I believe, is get in there and open up... if that's how it works." Ratchet threw his hands up, shaking his helm and Jetfire hoped that this _would_ work.

The Seeker, now that he simply had to _do_ it, hesitated. He slid off the slab and walked up to the tank and then stood there for several kliks, one hand against the armour glass. 

Frowning, Jetfire almost slid off his own slab but was stopped by Ratchet's hand on his elbow and a warning scowl, the meaning clear - stay put. That didn't mean he wasn't still wondering about the _hesitation_ since Starscream had been so very adamant about getting Sunstorm out, and he doubted the hesitation came from the clone spark himself.

Then the Seeker _moved_ , hovering up to settle himself on the edge of the open top on the tank. Normally the glass would be lowered into the base to allow the injured mech to be placed directly in the CR chamber, and then the device would raise the glass and seal itself. But with what they were doing now that wasn't possible, so instead Ratchet had left the top off, which allowed the Seeker to slide in, feet first.

His hands immediately went to the sides of the tank, scraping at the glass from the inside, and Jetfire frowned at the tenseness visible in the way the wings had frozen. Sure, it was not the most pleasant thing to be _aware_ while trapped in a CR chamber, but it wasn't terrible either and the one Ratchet had chosen was large enough to accommodate the Seeker's whole frame, from stabilisers to helm and from wingtip to wingtip.

He'd barely touched the tips of his stabilisers to the bottom of the tank, however, before there was a crackling surge of whitish-blue energy in ribbons from his frame. It sort of looked like a lightning rising up and out from the frame, but that wasn't _lightning_ , but rather Sunstorm's dispersed spark simply tearing from Starscream's chassis and collecting to snap into the ball of protoform.

"... Well. That's... different," muttered Jazz and Jetfire quietly agreed, though supposed that must have been what Sunstorm leaving his frame for Starscream's had looked like. The second after the last strand of spark energy had left Starscream's frame, the Seeker nearly _exploded_ out of the CR chamber. He almost cracked his helm on the ceiling before he caught himself and landed on the floor.

"Get rid of it!" Stumbling away from the CR chamber, Starscream raised his arms and then lowered them again as he realised that he didn't have his null rays and instead turned to face the chamber fully, a deep scowl on his faceplates.

Ratchet stormed up and put himself between Seeker and CR chamber, pushing at Starscream though only succeeding in making him sway back, not retreat. Somehow, despite Ratchet being several feet shorter than Starscream, he managed to seem both larger and more threatening.

"Forget it! I didn't do all that work just to have you feel like you have the right to terminate him, especially _after he went willingly_!" Giving a sharp rap to the cockpit under his hand had more of an effect to get Starscream to take a step back, scowl darkening while his hands tightened into fists.

"Well, I didn't agree to Shockwave ripping out enough of me to use in a cloning experiment! And he's a freak! He'll be easy to take care of now. Don't tell me you don't remember how powerful he was and what he did with it, Ratchet," sneered Starscream, his once-again red optics narrowing.

"He did far less damage than _you_ did when you attacked the _Ark_ and quite obviously doesn't have any loyalty programming courtesy of Shockwave so whatever choice he'll make after being able to make them again will obviously be his own. And he _has the right to make those choices_ , even if his beginning was less than ethical, so _can it_ , Starscream!" Ratchet was nearly vibrating, working up into a good volume, but Starscream didn't seem about to step down.

Prowl and Jazz unwound from their positions, Prowl opening his mouth, but Jetfire came up beside the shouting mechs first, laying one hand each on Starscream and Ratchet's shoulders---

And then the inter-city comm. in the med. bay chimed to life.

"Prowl, Jazz, Commander Faireborne just contacted us. Apparently the Earth Defence Command headquarters just got attacked by Decepticons a short while ago! I've got her on the line still, she wants to talk to you." Red Alert sounded clipped and a bit tense and every set of Autobot optics in the med. bay turned to Starscream, who tilted his helm, shrugged, and then smirked.

"We're coming. Jetfire, stay here and keep an optic on him, if you're feeling well enough? You'll be updated later, or, in the case you're coming with us I'll have someone else in here immediately." Prowl turned to look up at Jetfire, who shook his helm.

"I can manage." If anyone one else was sent right now, Starscream would undoubtedly be escorted to whatever holding cells - improvised or actual - that had been put together, and he wanted the chance talk with Starscream without that reality pressing down, even if it _was_ obviously going to happen sooner or later.

Ratchet gave Starscream a dirty glare before he stomped out after Prowl and Jazz, and there was the distinct noise of the doors locking after they slid closed, leaving Starscream and Jetfire to stare at each other. That didn't last long, even if Starscream's hand briefly brushed against the back of Jetfire's hand, though if it was to remove it or... something else, was lost when Starscream whirled back towards the tank again.

Suppressing a groan, Jetfire tightened his grip and walked backwards, dragging Starscream with him.

"Jetfire, _let me go_! I'll take care of him _myself_ since none of you pathetic Autobots will!" The snarl might have been more threatening if Starscream hadn't been clawing emptily at the air towards the CR chamber, and Jetfire just shook his helm, turning Starscream around.

"No."

Casting a completely red, narrow glare up at Jetfire, Starscream huffed and moved to turn again, but he didn't get that far before Jetfire turned him back and squeezed both his shoulders before he let go and took a step back.

"Starscream, can you just---" His vocaliser died in white noise as he raised his hands and then let them fall back to his sides, meeting Starscream's gaze again. They stared at each other, and this time the stillness lengthened silently, seconds passing into a klik and then more while Starscream shifted on his feet but... didn't move. That aborted sentence hadn't been in relation to Sunstorm, and they both knew that.

The question was, what now?

"Can I just... _what_?” The sneer in Starscream's voice pulled at his faceplates as well when he finally spoke, optics narrowing. “What do you even _want_? What're you even expecting to... happen..." Starscream trailed off, looking away. They had _both_ wanted... something, before they'd ended up here. Jetfire knew it from the way Starscream had almost taken his hand, back in the cave. But now that they were _here_...

What did he expect?

Staring down at Starscream, whose wings were now back to pristine white, his hands and stabilisers which had earlier been tipped in white, were blue again and that flat, dull stare that telegraphed stubborn defensiveness of a different sort than the bullheaded challenge he usually lobbed at Megatron; well, Jetfire could see the difference.

One of those blue hands were curled into a fist at Starscream's side, and in response, his own did as well, flexing and then relaxing again

He didn't _expect_ anything. 

Not really. 

He'd _hoped_ Starscream would do as he asked, and something curled low and warm in the circuitry beneath his spark chamber with the knowledge he _had_ since Bumblebee had been in the Autobot rescue party. He'd _hoped_ his actions wouldn't just save Earth, but Starscream as well, because... well, because he was his friend.

That was a truth long buried and ignored and nearly forcibly forgotten, because fighting a war on opposite sides after he left the Decepticons had made it easier to deal with it by pushing that knowledge away. He'd dealt with things and thoughts and hurts _relating_ to that truth, but he hadn't unburied it.

Not until right before he flew after Sunstorm, anyway. He hadn't expected to survive Sunstorm's explosion so he hadn't bothered to think _beyond_ that simple fact of 'he was/is my friend and that's suddenly hard to _not_ think about' back then. It'd felt important enough. But after that...

Something thrummed, like a flicker - an echo of a flicker, familiar and comfortable, and when his optics focused again, Starscream was staring at him with a similar intensity. The Seeker was obviously feeling it as well. Or rather, paying attention to it, since it'd been there the whole time in the med. bay; the room wasn't large enough to dilute the 'sound'.

This close, their shared, synchronised spark pulse sent a humming vibration through his frame, and Jetfire let go of the vent he'd apparently been holding and reached out.

"Starscream..."

Jetfire might had reached first, but Starscream snapped forward with the right force and angle to have Jetfire stumble back when he hit his frame with a clear, ringing sound. He reached for the vents on Jetfire's shoulders to use as hand-holds to heave himself up while Jetfire fit an arm beneath him to support the Seeker and not leave him dangling.

Their size difference was enough to be _awkward_ , but not enough to be impossible and while this had never happened before, they moved together with a knowledge of _where and how_ their frames were and fit together, even if they were different from the last time they'd actually been regularly spending time in each other's company.

Their mouths fit together with a static snap as teeth briefly caught, accompanied by the thudding clatter of Jetfire's back hitting the wall behind him, and he'd actually... never thought about this. The idea had never before formed solidly, even when his spark pulse had adjusted to Starscream's on its own.

The idea of perfectly harmonised spark synchronisation was one he'd never paid attention to, and even if they'd never shared their sparks in interface before synchronisation happened... the only thing _that_ meant was the comfortable, welcome knowledge of how close they'd become when the adjustment happened, even if Starscream had been insufferably smug about the fact that Jetfire's spark pulse had adjusted itself after his own.

He could honestly say he hadn't even considered kissing Starscream before their lips met, but now? It seemed so obvious he felt somewhat silly for not having thought of it before. 

Then Starscream pushed, angling for deeper, for _more_ , and Jetfire tilted his helm and pulled Starscream slightly closer and further up against him to accommodate that, charge catching between their tongues and burning downwards, in.

::... not _expecting_ anything at all.::

For how could he have expected it, when the thought had never occurred before?

::... Better that way. Now _pay attention_!::

And with one of Starscream's hands around the back of his helm, digging into the seams around one of his audio receptors, his spark fairly singing with the echoed spark pulse, how could he not?

\------------  
 **Autobot City, Emergency Response Center, shortly after Prowl, Jazz and Ratchet left the med. bay.**

"Where's Bumblebee, Carly and Spike?" asked Prowl as they passed through the door into the 'command hub' of the City, glancing over at Jazz. He did of course know where they _had_ been when they landed the Orion and that they'd been promised a tour around the place all three of them, since Bumblebee hadn't been to Autobot City at all before, but he'd left it to Bumblebee himself to actually decide who would show him and the other two around.

"Cliffjumper's showing them around... they just left the targeting range." Jazz's helm straightened from the tilt of checking, his visor flaring a little and he nodded to Marissa on the screen as he and Prowl came up to where the call was being broadcast from. 

Red Alert moved out of the way and went back to his own station, but the room was, of course, not empty besides the three of them; Prowl had called in Ironhide as well, and depending on how this went, all of the old Ark crew that was present on Earth would be the first to be told.

"Commander Faireborn. You said you had a Decepticon attack?" Sitting down in the chair in front of the screen, Jazz and Ironhide took up vigil on each side as all three cybertronians watched the woman who _very briefly_ had her cheeks flushing faintly more ruddy than her usual tone before they paled back and she straightened.

"We did. Normally we would have an acceptable defense even against an attack of this caliber, but one of them... Skywarp, I believe, managed to calculate enough of our base one bit at a time to warp himself and others in and thus inside our outer defense perimeter. We're probably lucky that they seemed to be out after one thing only..." Marissa took a deep breath, hands behind her back as she met Prowl's optics. "This wouldn't have been relayed to you except for the fact that it'd probably be beneficial for you to know that, if the Decepticons can repair them, they'll have Devastator back."

All four cybertronians in the room on their end of the call stiffened. Prowl first aborted the gesture he was about to make, and then finished it anyway, rubbing his chin while Ironhide growled.

"Th' frag---" He cut himself off and crossed his arms over his chest, blue optics dimming in a narrow stare at Marissa. Jazz, for the moment, said nothing.

"You picked them up from the ocean, then and kept them in stasis lock?" One could probably excuse the cooling-off of Prowl's tone; it was something of a sore topic, that of humans keeping stasis-locked cybertronians tucked away. And frankly, no matter Faireborne's honour and honesty, she was human and part of their military so there was no telling what they'd done with the pieces of Devastator.

"To keep them from the Decepticons, yes. The processors weren't touched."

Not that that was much of a consolation, though it was doubtful they'd have managed to get in and tamper anyway. Lazarus' hack had been a shell program; effective but, ultimately, shallow and not particularly hard to get rid of as long as there was outside assistance. Humans just didn't have the knowledge, equipment or skill - yet - to go deeper and change anything more fundamental.

"Which you admittedly did, at least until the Decepticons found out where they were kept. How much damage did they inflict?" The Earth Defence Command was, for now, a nominal ally that was worth having operational. 

Prowl just wished he was better at reading humans in general - _something_ told him Faireborne had more than one thing still hidden away to reveal, and the pressure of Jazz's hand on the backrest of the chair told him Jazz was having the same thought as he was.

"Less than they _could have_ , though that fusion cannon made a right mess..." Trailing off, Marissa rubbed a temple, glanced at Jazz and then set her jaw, looking back at Prowl. "There is. One other thing we kept here that would be of _personal_ interest to you. Due to the attack, with the right changes, it would look like the Decepticons took that as well." She was stalling, and they all knew it.

"... What, exactly, did the EDC keep besides Devastator, Commander Faireborne?"

"We fished up the pieces of Superion."

If the cybertronians had stiffened before, this was a right out, few-seconds blue-screen freeze. Sure, the Aerialbots were probably not alive, but that wasn't the point. Their sacrifice in stopping the nuclear bomb that had been going for San Francisco on General Hallo's orders, the failsafe for deactivating the warhead while the bomb was in-flight gone, had been a big blow to the Autobots. 

Important, but painful.

Ironhide stomped out of view to punch the wall once, twice, and off to the side, Red Alert looked aghast. Prowl briefly rested his faceplates in the palm of one hand.

"Jazz..."

"On it, partner." The hand he clapped to the wheel set in a shoulder squeezed slightly too firmly, and he wasn't exactly smiling at Marissa when he turned to look at her through the feed, but he didn't sound _angry_ either. "Ready for a surprise visit, Commander? I'm sure the 'Cons weren't gracious enough houseguests to clean up after themselves. Red, you're with me."

Marissa met Jazz's sharp look with a slightly wan, but serious expression and nodded, turning back to Prowl as Jazz left her line of sight, Red Alert passing by past Prowl in the background as they both left and Jazz went to pick up a small crew who could help pick up the pieces and clean up what they could of the EDC.

"Do you know if they're alive or not?" Prowl had to manually unclench his jaw from the lock it'd ended up in at that possibility, but Marissa shook her head, a few strands that had escaped her low ponytail brushing her cheek.

"Unknown. You've got a lot of different energy readings and radiation in your frames, so you're probably a better judge of that. But we don't have more than the head of Superion relatively intact," said Marissa, her tone apologetic, probably assuming the processor would probably be a huge part of the potential survival. 

Usually, it would be, but with the Aerialbots combined into Superion when they'd flown headfirst into the bomb, _maybe_ the fact that it was the gestalt hit instead of each Aerialbot separately exploded might have saved them.

Maybe.

"Right." Pausing, Prowl looked Marissa over with a frown. "Anything else?"

"Only _this_." With that, the view on the screen split in two to show Marissa on one side and on the other, a fuzzy security feed of an unfamiliar, probably cybertronian mech striding through the rubble to disappear from view. 

Unfamiliar insofar as it wasn't someone they'd had to do with before, either on Earth or earlier in the war back on Cybertron. 

"I got told you'd said you didn't recognise the other ones of this type we've had landing in a few places. They're currently not doing much, though we've lost surveillance on all of them for now. This one came right on the tail-end of the Decepticon attack, but did less damage than the 'Cons did."

The next shot showed another security feed of the mech, picking up... Prowl tilted his helm, the upper edge of one optic arching. So that's where the mech from the escape capsule they'd fought they Decepticons over in the Malaspina Glacier before Shockwave attacked had went to.

"We don't, no. Though the blue one did sport a Decepticon insignia, but at this point it's unknown whether that _means_ anything, and the purple one didn't carry one, at least not visibly." Shaking his helm, Prowl reviewed the feed of both short security feeds on another screen as they'd been saved and downloaded for them automatically.

"We'll keep our sensors out, and this might be bigger than what just went down, Commander. We don't know, yet, but those two might be connected to something else. Perhaps Megatron will feel like exchanging some intel for his lieutenant," said Prowl with a short, sharp smile before they cut the call and he pinched the bridge of his nasal ridge.

"The _Aerialbots_..."

The hand on his shoulder this time was from Ironhide, who was still vibrating with barely-held back engine revs and scowling deeply.

"Ya think that's all goin' on?" 

"... Frankly, no." Prowl sighed and shook his helm slowly. "But what I'm more worried about is that those two unknowns and the duplicates _aren't_ a Decepticon ploy."

Ironhide stiffened beside him, the hand on Prowl's shoulder-wheel tightening before the grip loosened up again and Ironhide gave a few half-hearted pats as he looked to the looping recording of the security feed, both of them suffused by that strange, ominous pressure back when Optimus had said that something might be going on, after Shockwave had lost.

They'd all seen the strange energy beam that had left Shockwave's tower and felt the sub-surface tremor, even if they had been too busy back then to pay proper attention to it, and Jetfire had said he suspected something tied to the Fallen was moving.

They didn't need this, and they didn't even know what they needed to prepare for, or how, but it was clear they _had to_.

"... Me too. Me too," muttered Ironhide as his hand dropped from Prowl's shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it. Hopefully I'll be able to figure out the next part of the series, but it's going to take some thought because I don't really have a clue how I'm going to plot it out yet; I have a prologue done, though, which'll go up soon.


End file.
